Northern giraffe

The northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), also known as three-horned giraffe, is the type species of giraffe, G. camelopardalis, and is native to North Africa, although alternative taxonomic hypotheses have proposed the northern giraffe as a separate species.

See Giraffe for details of how this proposed taxonomy fits with the currently accepted taxonomy of giraffes.

Northern giraffe
in Murchison Falls National Park
CITES Appendix II (CITES)
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Giraffidae
Genus: Giraffa
Species:
G. camelopardalis
Binomial name
Giraffa camelopardalis
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Once abundant throughout Africa since the 19th century, Northern giraffes ranged from Senegal, Mali and Nigeria from West Africa to up north in Egypt. The similar West African giraffes lived in Algeria and Morocco in ancient periods until their extinctions due to the Saharan dry climate.

Giraffes collectively are considered Vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with around 97,000 wild individuals alive in 2016, of which 5,195 are Northern giraffes.

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