Researchers point out that giraffes are not flocking to avoid the risk of child rearing and predation

It was said that animals live together in groups to discover predators by increasing the size of herds and to increase the probability of survival when attacked by enemies. However, in the case of a giraffe living in a group, it was shown by Zoe Muller's studies majoring in bioscience at the University of Bristol that the group living for the purpose of obtaining these benefits is not done It was.

Giraffes surprise biologists yet again
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-giraffes-biologists.html

The number of giraffe has decreased by 40% in the past 30 years, and it is thought that the giraffe inhabiting the wild is less than 98,000 as of 2018. As a result of this sharp decrease, as the risk of extinction of giraffes is highInternational Nature ConfederationofRed ListofEmergency speciesIt is rated as. However, despite this situation, there was hardly any investigation into how the giraffe herd changes its scale due to any environmental factors.

Therefore, Mr. Muller's research team takes actions by the giraffe group due to environmental factors such as "prey to be predicted", "habitat", "character of individual", etc. in order to know the characteristics of the giraffe herd I did an investigation.

As a result of the survey, it turned out that the size of herds fluctuated by female behavior with children. In fact, females with children tend to form smaller groups apart from herds, making a large flock to look after the children who have been considered common in common with other females The fact of denying the way of thinking became clear.


Mr. Muller said, "Kirin is a species that is in danger of extinction and is constantly decreasing in number throughout Africa.We have just started research but if you can understand giraffe's behavior and ecosystem correctly, You should be able to manage the giraffe population well. "

Since the research results presented this time are cases in East Africa, the research team is planning to investigate whether kirin inhabiting other parts of Africa will have similar habits.