信息来源于Livescience。
Distressing discovery
This year, Lynn · Scott, a well-known travel blogger on the Internet, traveled to a private wildlife reserve in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Of course, as a blogger, she needs to collect interesting footage to edit her videos, so it's important to shoot anytime, anywhere.
During this trip, she captured a rare photograph of a giraffe as the main character. The theme of giraffes is not new, but the neck of this giraffe is twisted like a twist, almost making people feel that it has been broken!
It's a pity that the photo wasn't posted, and I'm afraid that the animal will be attacked by poachers. Finally, on July 5, Lynn · Scott shared the photo on Facebook, though it did not disclose the exact location and date.
Later, a reporter from the journal "Living Science" interviewed Lynn · Scott, Scott said that when she took the photo, the giraffe was almost completely immobile, and she was very worried about it, but the ranger who led the tour said that there was no need to worry about the giraffe losing its ability to move, because if it did, it would have died a long time ago.
Netizens on social media were quite heartbroken, and most of them felt that the giraffe's neck was broken. However, experts say there is not enough evidence to support this hypothesis.
Its neck was broken?
Sara · Ferguson, a veterinarian and health protection coordinator at the NGO Giraffe Conservation Foundation, said in an interview: "This giraffe's neck is indeed horribly twisted, but if there is no X-ray to prove that the bone is indeed broken, we would suspect that it has a severe torticollis." ”
According to Johns Hopkins Medical School, this "torticollis" is a condition that causes the head to rotate or tilt at odd angles. It can be innate, or it can be acquired, and the possible causes include incorrect sleeping position, fractures, herniated discs, muscle wasting, and spinal cord infections.
This disease can be affected by both humans and animals, but giraffes can be particularly noticeable because of what? Because of their long necks, of course.
Sara · Ferguson said she had seen giraffes with torticollis at zoos and even in the wild in Zambia, Kenya and Uganda, but none of them were as serious as this one, and she was not sure what caused her condition.
How?
In 2015, wildlife photographers spotted an adult male giraffe with a serrated neck in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park, though it is known whether the giraffe was dead or alive after it broke its neck in a fight with a male opponent five years ago.
So some people wondered if the giraffe photographed in the Kruger National Park was also injured and fractured during a fight with another male giraffe? Giraffes are ferocious in their fights, and they will quickly hit each other with their necks, like whips, as a way to show dominance and impress the female.
But Sarah · Ferguson said it was unlikely to be the result of the fight, because according to this photo, the giraffe is likely to be only a sub-adult giraffe, meaning it is still very young and will not be involved in breeding and fighting. And it's too young to tell its sex directly, so it's possible that it's actually a female.
It is also unknown if this will have an impact on their lives. But come to think of it, the survival rate is definitely not high. This photo may be the last time I see it.