Scientific Illustration

Giraffes by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Promenade au jardin zoologique d’Anvers /.
Anvers :J.-E. Buschmann,1861..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41045974

marywilliams:

Here’s a pretty quick sketch I recently did comparing the lynganeal nerve in humans and giraffes. I have a few more sketches to take care of and then I’ll hopefully have some Mandarin Ducks in progress this weekend. :)

Animation of the head of a 22-year-old adult female Baringo giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi, OUVC 10513) demonstrating aspects of the head blood vascular system. Arteries and veins were injected with different concentrations of barium and latex, allowing their discrimination with CT scanning. The first series (white background, surface rendering) depicts all the vessels as green, whereas the second series (black background, volume rendering) provides some color coding (blue veins and red arteries). This giraffe was named Susie and lived at The Wilds in Cumberland, Ohio, where she died of natural causes in December 2003 at which point her head came to WitmerLab at Ohio University for research. This visualization was done by Ryan Ridgely using Avizo, Adobe Premiere, and Quicktime. We thank Heather Rockhold and O’Bleness Hospital for CT scanning and NSF for funding. For news from WitmerLab, visit http://www.ohio.edu/witmerlab or our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/witmerlab).

Section of the head of young giraffe by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London..
London :Academic Press, [etc.],1833-1965..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/37028061

h2en-gwei:

Sivatherium was a genus of giraffids that had large, elaborate ossicones that have given it comparisons to modern day moose. Unlike bone derived antlers, however, the ossicones of giraffids are made from ossified cartilage and not bone, and retain the fur and skin covering, where as deer shed their velvet. Sivatheres lived throughout Africa and southeastern Asia, and may have lived as recently as 8000 years ago, as evidenced by rock paintings that seem to depict a very similar creature. It would have looked like a very large okapi (around seven feet tall at the shoulder). Interestingly, throughout most of its scientific history, there has been a heated debate: did it have a trunk?

The first skull depicted is that of modern giraffes, and the center is Sivatherium. The final skull is a tapir’s, a modern day animal with a trunk. When all three skulls are compared, one can see why scientists think Sivatherium could have had a trunk. It is the writer’s opinion, however, that Sivatherium did not. The likelihood is that Sivatherium instead had perhaps a sort of inflated, fleshy nose, as depicted by this reconstruction:

Such a nose would likely be used for amplifying calls, perhaps especially during mating season, or even be inflated for a warning or mating display. It is also likely that such a nose would aid the animal in cooling itself in the hot climate it evolved in. If both uses were true, the nose may have even had a bright, colorful display when inflated and filled with blood. In this scenario, they would also likely have had highly flexible lips that would aid in browsing.

compendium-of-beasts:

The Giraffe (1832)

via NYPL

biomedicalephemera:

Okapia johnstoni - The Okapi

Though it has the same general body shape of the giraffe, okapis have much shorter necks, and their type body evolved long before the giraffes. However, their significantly striped necks and legs did not evolve to what we know today until the species split off into forest-dwelling and grassland types.

Like the giraffe, the okapi has a very long, blue, muscular tongue. It uses this part of its body to groom itself more thoroughly than would otherwise be possible, and to strip the leaves off of bush branches. It also has the cloven hooves and digestive tract of the giraffidae family.

Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1902.

imagesoup18:

source

dailyfossil:

Shansitherium

When: Late Miocene (~ 11 - 6 Million years ago)

Where: China

What: Shansitherium is a fossil relative of the giraffe. Giraffes are a commonly used example of an easy to see evolutionary transformation, the neck getting longer and longer, and here is some of the evidence used to show that hypothesis. Shansitherium lived in the late Miocene of China, and falls closer to the giraffe line than any other extant clade of artiodactyls. It possesses horns like that of the modern giraffe and okapi, which probably would have been covered with skin in life (these are called ossicones), but over all looks much more like a moose than a giraffe. 

Today the Giraffidaehas only two living species, the giraffe (duh) and the okapi, and is only found in sub saharan-Africa. In the Miocene however this group was far more diverse, with Shansitherium just one example of the over a dozen species that roamed all over not just Africa, but Asia and Europe as well. The late Miocene was a time of cooling and drying climates in much of the world, and this is probably what lead to the reduction of species in this clade. 

Reconstruction by Willem van der Merwe.

n61_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Giraffe skulls