Giraffes their story.

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Luan the clever little boy who saw the Bird of Paradise as a black hole, said to his mother, I am so interested in animals do we have all the animals in our forest behind the house in the world. 

His mother said no sweet heart. There are animals that live in very dry areas, and they do not live here in the dense forest. 

Oh mother will you tell me about one of these animals please? 

His mother said, I will but you will have to help me as I don’t know everything about all the animals. When you get to school tomorrow, go to the library and get us a book on Giraffes they live in dry areas and we will learn about them together. 

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Luan was so pleased and could hardly wait to give his mother the book when he got home. Oh what a lovely book my dear, after dinner we will sit and read about the giraffes together. Luan helped his mother make the food and clean the kitchen as he was in such a hurry to see what was in the book. 

When everything was clean they sat down and started reading about the giraffes. O mother they are very tall animals, I did not know they were so tall. His mother told him that they eat the leaves from the top of the trees and they are the tallest animals in the world. Really why are they so tall? So that they could reach the top of the trees with the nicest leaves as that is their food. 

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They eat other things as well like herbs and some vines but they prefer the leaves of the Acacia tree that grow in very dry areas. Oh mother if it is so dry where, do they get water from?

 They do not drink a lot of water only every four to five days as they get their water from the leaves of the plants that they eat. So how do they get water when they need it mother? They go to the waterhole or the river nearest to them but it is very difficult for them to drink water as they have very long legs. 

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But that is not the only thing they have that is long, did you know they have the longest tails of all animals. Their tail can grow to 2.4 meters long. Is that not interesting?

You have watched programs on television where they tell us that all people have different fingerprints do you remember? Oh yes I do.  Well Giraffes have spots that work just like fingerprints. No giraffe has the same set as spots as another just like fingerprints. Now I am going to tell you something just as interesting did you know that snowflakes don’t look alike either. They all have their own pattern is nature not just the most wonderful thing ever.   

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Luan said he did not know and was so pleased to learn about these things from his mother. Something else very interesting is that giraffes sleep very little and they do not sleep very often either. 

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People need at least a night’s sleep but a giraffe can sleep for a short time and will just wake up and go on. Even if they have long necks they only have the same neck bones as humans. O mother they are such strange animals, but they are very beautiful.

 

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His mother got up to make them a glass of milk each and he kept reading. Mom they can run fast as well I cannot believe that these big animals can run so fast.

 How fast can they run? His mother asked him from the kitchen. 

The book says up to 56 km per hour for short distances. That is very interesting, what else did you find. 

Mom their babies can walk less than an hour after they are born. Could I walk then? No Luan it takes a while for human babies to lean to walk and they start crawling first then they learn to walk.

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Oh mother this is so interesting we must really try to learn about more animal when I am not playing in the forest. Yes dear but maybe we should learn about the animals you see in the forest first then we will go on to animals in other places. What do you think? 

That is a wonderful idea, I know a lot about them already but I am sure I do not know everything.

Thank you so much for telling me about the giraffes, one day I want to go to those places where I can see them in real life. It was nice learning about them but it is bath time now and school tomorrow. You can go and tell your friends about the giraffes; maybe they did not know either.

Hope you enjoyed my story and have a wonderful day.