Giraffes are Really Six Species

picture from the BBC

To you and me, one giraffe may look like any other, but genetic research out of UCLA suggests that the familiar animal is actually six different species.

Biologists generally define a species as a group of similar animals that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. While a giraffe in the zoo will breed with any other giraffe, wild giraffes self-segregate into six distinct mating groups whose spots vary in color and shape.

The groups’ territories overlap, suggesting the giraffes could interbreed but choose not to. “The female Maasai giraffe may be looking at the male reticulated giraffe and thinking, ‘I don’t look like you; I don’t want to mate with you’,” lead author David Brown told the BBC.

Although both the Maasai giraffe and the reticulated giraffe live in Kenya, the genetic information shows the two groups separated 0.5 to 1.5 million years ago.

Read the story from the BBC.