New Scientific Paper Has Explained How Giraffes Grew Long Necks

Both Solounias and Danowitz discovered that the cranial end of the vertebra stretched initially around seven million years ago in the species known as “Samotherium”, and extinct relative of today’s modern giraffe, being the first stage. The researchers studied 71 fossils belonging to nine extinct species of early giraffes, and conducted a comparison to two common living species in the giraffe family, according to the Daily Mail.

“It’s intriguing to remember the fact that the correct spinal posture were not made regular”, Nikos Solounias, show good way the research and governess of structure along at the New York Institute of Technology.

It might sound like a remake of an old joke starting with “which came first”, but different theories on how giraffes got their emblematic long neck have been splitting the scientific community until now. The second stage was the elongation of the back portion of the C3 neck vertebra. They found that two species – Prodremotherium elongatum, which lived 25 million years ago and was potentially an ancestor of modern giraffes, and Canthumeryx sirtensis, which was a giraffe ancestor that lived 16 million years ago – both had elongated necks.

In the study published in the October. 7 issue of the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers said “the most distinguishing and popular attribute of giraffes is apparently not a defining feature of the family”.

In addition, giraffes are not the only animals to have evolved long necks. “The lengthening started before the giraffe family was even created 16 million years ago”.

Researchers compared the third cervical vertebra from 11 species, nine of them were from extinct species and two from living, with the modern animals’ vertebrae.

“We also found that the most primitive giraffe already started off with a slightly elongated neck”. Each one’s front side became increasingly longer.

The long neck of the giraffe (left) allows them to browse leaves from branches high on trees in the African Savannah (right) but is also used by males in fights over females, where they swing their necks like giant clubs. The second stage of elongation on the back started around one million year ago. The researchers found that as the modern day giraffe’s neck was getting longer, the neck of species of the giraffe was getting shorter. But rather than evolving a long neck, it has a neck that has shortened again.