Mammals · plate 10 of 60
Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis
Sees everything coming. Comments on none of it.
Only 1.7% of people are Giraffes. (estimated)
If you're a Giraffe
You are tall in the social sense: a little above the fray, mild, hard to rattle, and better informed than you let on. Giraffes form loose, changeable groups and drift between them without drama; you do the same with friends and jobs. You are not quick to react, and you don't need to be. You saw it from a long way off.
A giraffe's neck has the same seven vertebrae as yours; each one is simply very long.
The Giraffe as a spirit animal
You are calm, observant, and a little removed, which people read as serenity and is partly just height. You are flexible about company, loyal without being clingy, and slow to anger. The flaw is that you take in everything and act on very little; your best insights go unspoken for want of a neck to say them with. When you do react, it is all at once and from a great height.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Giraffe
Do
- Give them a view; giraffes are the lookouts of the savanna and like to be the ones who see first.
- Keep the group loose; giraffes join and leave gatherings without ceremony and expect the same.
- Bring the good leaves; a giraffe's loyalty to a reliable acacia is real.
Don't
- Don't make them bend down for the conversation; they will stand there and not drink.
- Don't expect speed; the reaction time is the one weak spot.
When it goes wrong: A frightened giraffe kicks hard enough to kill a lion and then runs; give it space and never approach from behind.
The Giraffe in a relationship
You love calmly and without much fuss. Giraffes form no lasting pairs; a male tests a female's interest and moves on, and the mother raises the calf among the herd's other mothers. You are a steady presence rather than a passionate one. Your partner is well watched over, from above.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 6
- Boldness
- 3
- Energy
- 3
- Curiosity
- 4
- Devotion
- 5
- Roaming
- 6
- Giraffes sleep only a few hours a day, much of it standing up and in short bouts.
- In captivity, giraffes have been recorded humming to each other at night at a frequency too low for keepers to have noticed; nobody is sure what it is for.
- A giraffe is most vulnerable when it splays its front legs to drink, which is why it drinks rarely and nervously.
Giraffes in literature
- The Giraffe — Just So Stories (How the Leopard Got His Spots), Rudyard Kipling (1902)
- The camelopard — Aethiopica, Heliodorus of Emesa (250)
- The camelopardalis — Natural History, Pliny the Elder (77)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Giraffe's. If you got Giraffe, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other mammals
WolfRed FoxBrown BearPolar BearLionTigerLeopardCheetahElephantHippopotamusGorillaOrangutanSlothKoalaKangarooPlatypusOtterBeaverBadgerRaccoonHedgehogBatCamelDolphinSperm Whale
Among the 60
The Illustrated Magazine of Art, Alexander Montgomery (publisher) (1853). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
