Saturday, March 3, 2012

Magic giraffes

Love giraffes! They are such cool animals. If a person would have written a childrens book about all these amazing wildlife species, without them truely excisting, this person would be a genius. The most creative, out of the box soul ever. How could God create an animal with a very long neck and long legs, what's still able to give birth and drink water? Magic! Can you image in the needed power of the heart to pumb all crucial blood 5-6 meters up in the air? And what about the complexity of bringing down the head for drinking? In an adult giraffe the heart weights around 11kg and is around 61cm long! A complex pressure-regulation prevents excess blood flow to the brain and valves in the venes prevent blood flowing back when the giraffe lowers its head to drink. Because of its hight and body weight, the bloodpressure in the legs of a giraffe is very high. A very tight skin around the legs prevents too much blood from pouring into them. A newborn calf is around 1.8m long and falls literally into life! Magic how nature sorts it all out, isn't it? Fascinating.

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