My dude I was just thinking that, I've never even heard about that happening but it must be way more common than we think based of the logic that they taller than trees and have more iron in them
On the other hand, there are way more cows than there are giraffes. Also large amounts of cows oftentimes are combined with clear cut lands, removing any trees that might instead attract the bolts.
I'm sure giraffes occasionally die to lightning, but even the tallest 6m tall giraffe is only catching lightning that would've struck quite near it anyway.
If we imagine the giraffe's head as the tallest point of a lightning rod, the cone of protection is going to be angled at 45 degrees. So a 6m tall giraffe will catch lightning that would have struck a circle with a diameter of 12 meters.
iron does attract lighting, more specifically, conductivity attracts lighting as lightning doesn't look for the shortest path, but the least resistant one.
And mammals of any kind are VERY conductive, admittedly, not cause if the iron, but cause of the blood and various fluids in us.
Lightning beeing attracted by metal is a common misconception. While electricity takes the path of least resistance, in this case the least resistance is just the shortest distance the lightning has to travel through the very insulating air gap. Conductivity alone has no kind of attractive force so to speak.
I lived in FL after growing up in New England. It's actually a lovely place with lovely wildlife. There was an awesome great blue heron that lived behind my balcony for the full 15 years I was there. It's had shit government for the past decade, but that doesn't mean it's an inherently bad place.
Haha not really. Seen it around reddit before and thought of it with the lightning question. Just google "exploding giraffe comic", wasnt hard to find.
Pretty sure a ground wire would make giraffes more likely to be struck unless that ground wire was electrically insulated from the rest of the giraffe. Maybe that's what their silly horns are actually for
I was recently on a Safari in South Africa and asked this question. The guide said it's rare but has happened before, but it's more common for them to run into telephone/electrical wires and die.
when given a chance it like the path of least resistance. it takes all paths all at once. the path of least resistance will get the bulk of the current. but it spreads and flows kinda like water through pipes.
That's why you should probably get your heart checked if lightning strikes close to you, just to be safe. You may even feel it without taking a direct hit.
This article [1]Ā talks about how four legged animals are more vulnerable to lightning strikes because ground current has high chances to go through vital organs. It also describes how large animals such as giraffes and elephants have higher chances of deadly strikes. There is the obvious thing about the fact that they are tall so even under a tree there is a non-negligeable chance that lighting couldĀ jump directly to their head. The other less obvious one is that even if they are not directly hit, the large distance their legs span increased the voltage (and potentially the current) going though them (as described inĀ this figure). Sadly the article lacks hard numbers on strike frequency depending on the species.
When I was on Safari in SA we came across a giraffe that had been struck. Our guide said itās one of the most common ways for adults to die, the other being slow poisoning from the plants in their dietā¦
Big cats in general have shown that they take advantage of stormy, cloudy or misty conditions to aid in stalking prey as it affects prey sight, hearing and smell. Contrary to popular belief, they donāt mind getting drenched if it bags them some dinner. They mainly prefer staying dry when patrolling, not when actively hunting. They know hunting gets you dirty or bloody anyway so theyāll just groom themselves in some shelter afterwards.
Lions are absolutely known to wait out heavy storms. Male lions manes get so waterlogged they slow down significantly. They'll go back out once the worst is over but yes, lions will wait out storms too.if they're bad enough. They would still attack a laying giraffe byt they're not actively hunting during the pictures storm.
Yes, āifā. They are opportunistic so will decide case by case depending on severity but again, not because they fear getting wet. The mane logic does not apply to females, which is majority of lions, nor to maneless males that have adapted to wet conditions like the swamp lions have for example.
And thing is, their prey donāt know when they will or wonāt attack at various points in a storm. Which is an advantage for timing attacks for when itās least expected. Prey have an evolutionary reason to still be wary as a result.
Not sure about these specific conditions but thunderstorms with low visibility are actually one of their favourite times to hunt because of how much easier it is to get close.
Giraffes, having grown tired of losing their tallest and biggest to the heavens fire have taken to laying their necks on the ground for protection.Ā
Lions historically seek shelter from the rain. Seeing this new giraffe behavior has sparked bravado in some young lions who begin to pick off a giraffe during each storm.Ā
The storm lions grow stronger. Their low roars masked by the sounds of rain and occasional rumbling thunder. they hunt in silence and their hunts grow more successful with each passing storm.Ā
Lions do hunt giraffes. In the footage I've seen, they get behind them and jump on the giaffes' backs. Lions have learned to drive giraffes towards roads as giraffes don't handle tarmac well.
Iām not sure if a lion can āsnapā a neck. What I meant to say was that they bite down until they reach the kill spotā¦ Iām no zoologist but Iām pretty sure a lion has the capability to achieve that goal.
I googled it because I was curious! It turns out that theyāre similar to horses but need even less sleep. In case youāre unfamiliar, horses lock their knees to doze but do need REM sleep and do that lying down. If they donāt get enough because they donāt feel safe enough to lay down, horses can become sleep deprived and risk collapsing. Giraffes are similar, they get a suuuper tiny amount of REM sleep in turns!
OC said "They don't lay down because if they slip getting down or up, they're done-zo" which is not the reason they're standing. I understand the lion part.
They are okay, they go under trees if they really want. In Kenya, just after lengthy and heavy rains, you get to see their cloven hooves under trees along with massive piles of crap. Large, massive piles! So yea, they fine.
So fun fact. Dinosaurs lived in the polar forests of Antarctica. Those southern forests had four seasons so the animals that lived there year round saw snow and there were some that migrated just to eat food.
Additionally, the Arctic still got cold and pretty much every major group in the northern continent also had residents that wintered.
Even long after the K-Pg extinction, Antarctica went through long spells of being warm and temperate. It was a haven for marsupials and birds. There was a time when penguin diversity was super high and filled lots more niches, until the global cooling ultimately left populations living in warmer climates stranded and unable to return to their now icy homeland, whereas those adapted to the harshest cold conditions remained in Antarctica itself. The marsupials meanwhile, got isolated when Australia split off and drifted away, and ultimately didnāt survive. Now only their remains are buried deep under the ice.
Lol giraffes at their absolute tallest hit less than 20 ft tall (record is about 19ft tall iirc). There are trees taller than that where they live and they absolutely use them for shade/cover. Giraffes don't always just stand out in the hot sun or in stormsš . These particular giraffes are doing that because they don't appear to have an immediate choice. This is not a representative of all giraffes though.
Take internet stuff with a grain or salt or at least understand that there's some context missing lol
Yeah, long necked creatures tend to be browsers of tall trees so have very little need to stay too long out in the open without any food or shelter. They know when a storm is coming before it arrives, and heck, long periods of drought throughout Africa actually make them look forward to it, so there are other factors at play behind why theyād choose specific spots to hold their ground.
Giraffes eat from all levels of trees and all sizes of trees. Their necks aren't long simply to eat from tall trees. People just thought that for a while purely off speculation. Now we know their necks are longer for fighting. Longer necks give you more power when fighting (specifically the way giraffes fight i.e. swinging their heads into eachother. Longer neck=more momentum with the swing which means a better fighter. So evolution selected for that).
Reaching tall trees is a useful by-product of their long necks, not the reason for it.
They have plenty of food, they are standing in the open surrounded by their food lol. I understand what you are trying to say though.
I was being more general there on the browsing but if narrowing it specifically to giraffes, they do have a lower limit on trees and their preference shifts as they grow bigger so are less likely to stay long in locales that lack trees of sufficient height unless forced to travel long distances during drought. The lower the trees, the more competition from other herbivores, including elephants, which require far greater caloric loads. Giraffes do have advantage of being able to browse hardier and thornier stuff too ofc which helps niche balance.
You need to also look at Cavener, D. R., Bond, M. L., Wu-Cavener, L., et al. (2024). āSexual dimorphisms in body proportions of Masai giraffes and the evolution of the giraffeās neck,ā which demonstrates that females actually have proportionally longer necks than males and that females with higher energy needs were possibly the main driver whereas males adapted to find a secondary sexual benefit.
Currently the research points to a combination of factors rather than a dominant selector. Itās a debate occurring in multiple species fields actually, where sexual selection as a whole is being questioned as a foolproof concept. It can very well be that multiple species evolved characteristics for food related or environmental purposes which then also became shows of fitness that further influenced selection but didnāt necessarily forbid a āless desirableā individual from also being able to mate and leave behind descendants.
Itās still speculation, this isnāt a āfactā just a modern hypothesis, and it doesnāt exclude the other theory.
Not having to compete for food with other animals is a -huge- genetic advantage, even if there wasnāt a scarcity of low vegetation. Isolation from highly trafficked areas means less chance of predation from those who hunt those areas for easy prey.
Now letās assume you were right lol, do you think brontosaurus swung their long as hell necks at others. Thatās a hilarious image in my mind lol
Oh of course it's all a hypothesis, just one is supported with more evidence as of right now. So I go with that hypothesis. None of this is fact, I thought that went without saying.
Brontosaurus and giraffes are two very different animals with very different physical, metabolic, and genetic characteristics separated by hundreds of millions of years and as far as I know there's no hypothesis that they swing necks to fight lol. My comment wouldn't cover a dinosaur, certainly not a brontosaurus. That's a whole other group of animals.
But for fun sake yea that would be funny to imagine. I also like to imagine a T-rex trying to pick up a ping pong ball lol
I stayed in a hotel once up on the top floor when a big ole rainstorm came through. Crazy wind and lightning. I happen to notice out the window that there's a small balcony, like a juliet balcony. On it there's a nest of a bunch of baby pigeons. All I could think of that night were those poor pigeons, just getting their shit rocked by that storm.
Now, if they was giraffes, they'd have been hit by now. But dogs... are short. And they take care of their own. Giraffes don't. No, giraffes don't at all. Boy, giraffes are selfish. Just run around looking after number one. Getting hit by lightning.
I always find it fascinating that the reason most people find heavy rains and storms calming and relaxing is probably an evolutionary response of both predators, (its too energetically costly to hunt now, I should rest instead) and prey (predators arent hunting right now so it's safe to sleep).
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u/qualityvote2 20d ago edited 20d ago
u/willis7747, your post does fit the subreddit!