Mondo Knows Facts
A giraffe neck has seven bones, like yours
Each vertebra is simply stretched to about 25 centimetres Almost every mammal has seven neck vertebrae, from a mouse to a giraffe. The giraffe's are greatly elongated with ball and socket joints for flexibility. A specialised blood vessel network and tight skin stop blood pooling when the head dips to drink. It sits in Mondo's animals collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
A giraffe sleeps less than two hours a dayMost of that comes in short bouts, often standing, with deep sleep lasting only minutesMany bird bones are hollow and struttedInternal braces keep them stiff while saving weight for flightSharks have cartilage instead of boneTheir skeletons are lighter and more flexible than bone would beA woodpecker's tongue wraps around its skullThe long tongue is stored in a sheath that loops over the back of the headA snake swallows by walking its jawsThe two halves of the lower jaw move independently to draw prey inwardInsects breathe through holes in their sidesAir enters spiracles and travels through tubes called tracheae
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Tags: giraffes, skeleton, anatomy
A giraffe neck has seven bones, like yours: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Each vertebra is simply stretched to about 25 centimetres. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.