An anonymous reader shares a report: With their crane-like necks, spindle legs and knobbly knees, giraffes are among the best loved and most recognizable of animals. Despite their elevated stature, however, giraffes have kept their surprisingly intricate social behavior under wraps. Once perceived as humble creatures that focused solely on feeding their majestic bodies, one book from 1991 described the giraffe as “socially aloof, forming no lasting bonds with its fellows and associating in the most casual way.”
But new research from the University of Bristol, published Tuesday in the journal Mammal Review, suggests giraffes have been misunderstood and are in fact a highly complex and social species. The most surprising thing for me is that it has taken until 2021 to recognize that giraffes have a complex social system. We have known for decades about other species of socially complex mammal, such as elephants, primates and cetaceans, but it is baffling to me how such a charismatic and well-known species as the giraffe could have been so understudied until recently,” said Zoe Muller, study author and biologist at the University Of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.