• Question: is a giraffes neck REALLLLLLLLY flexable?!?

    Asked by lilyhoranthellama5 to Juan on 8 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez

      Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 8 Mar 2014:

      Ok, the last giraffe question 🙂

      Well, yes, they are very flexible! This has to do with the way their vertebrae (the bones of the neck and backbone) are joined together.

      Unlike humans, the vertebrae of the giraffe’s neck (also known as the cervical vertebrae) are connected by “hole and socket” joints. These joint are very similar to the joints of your shoulders and they give the giraffe the ability to have very flexible necks.

      To better understand it, think of the vertebra as tubes of Pringles with a tennis ball on one end and a bowl (that fits that tennis ball perfectly) on the other. Now get 7 of those tubes…I mean vertebra, and join them together so that the ball of one tube fits into the bowl of another. Now try to bend the whole thing around; you will see that all connected together they make up for a very flexible structure…similar to that of a giraffe’s neck!

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