Giraffa camelopardalis
The northern giraffe, also known as the three-horned giraffe, is a species of giraffe native to North Africa.

Thomas Fuhrmann · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- giraffePBDB
- Sits inside
- GiraffaPBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Giraffa
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Giraffidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
- Mass
- 54.5 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
23 occurrences of Giraffa camelopardalis on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
23 occurrences- Pliocene7%
- Pleistocene37%
- Holocene57%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
4 formations
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The named rock units Giraffa camelopardalis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
278 taxa- Phacochoerus aethiopicus16 sites
- Equus quagga burchelli13 sites
- Hippotragus equinus11 sites
- Connochaetes taurinus10 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius10 sites
- Taurotragus oryx10 sites
- Bovidae9 sites
- Panthera leo9 sites
- Syncerus caffer9 sites
- Tragelaphus strepsiceros9 sites
- Aepyceros melampus8 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus8 sites
- Canis8 sites
- Eudorcas thomsoni8 sites
- Loxodonta africana8 sites
- Madoqua8 sites
- Orycteropus afer8 sites
- Sylvicapra grimmia8 sites
- Diceros bicornis7 sites
- Hyaena hyaena7 sites
- Hystrix cristata7 sites
- Mammalia7 sites
- Mellivora capensis7 sites
- Nanger granti7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Giraffa camelopardalis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
16 references- The Late Prehistory of the Eastern Sahel4
- Faunal Evidence for Early Stockkeeping in the Central Rift Valley of Kenya: Preliminary Findings3
- Taphonomy, Paleoecology, and Hominids of Lainyamok, Kenya2
- A revision of the faunal remains from two central Sudanese sites: Khartoum Hospital and Esh Shaheinab2
- Mid-Pleistocene change in large mammal faunas of East Africa1
- Les grands mammiferes du gisement Pleistocene Moyen de Latamne (Vallee de l'Oronte, Syrie)1
- Oldest Homo and Pliocene biogeography of the Malawi Rift1
- Implications of Late Quaternary mammalian fauna from Lukenya Hill (South-Central Kenya) for paleoenvironmental change and faunal extinctions1
- Environmental, Ecological and Paleoanthropological Implications of the Late Pleistocene Mammalian Fauna from Equus Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa1
- Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Occupations in the Upper Atbara River Valley, Sudan1
- Provenience, Age and Associations of Archaic Homo Sapiens Crania fron Lake Eyasi, Tanzania1
- Paleoenvironmental and Cultural Implications of Late Holocene Archaeological Faunas from the Orange Free State and North Central Cape Province, South Africa1
Each of the 23 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 4 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Giraffa camelopardalis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Thomas Fuhrmann
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- AMNH Mammal Collections
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Giraffa camelopardalis · AMNH:Mammals:M-139696
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGiraffa through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)