Reticulated Giraffes in Maryland

Built for the treetops

Everything about a giraffe is arranged around reaching food nothing else can. Its chief distinguishing characteristics are the extremely long neck and legs, the horn-like ossicones on top of the head, and that netted coat. Despite the length of the neck, a giraffe has the same seven neck vertebrae as almost every other mammal, including you; each one is simply enormous.

The heart. A giraffe’s heart has to push blood roughly six feet uphill to the brain, so its blood pressure is about twice that of a human’s. When the animal lowers its head to drink, all that pressure would rush the other way, so the blood vessels in the neck carry a system of one-way valves and elastic walls that close as the head goes down and keep the giraffe from passing out when it comes back up.

The tongue. A giraffe’s tongue is around a foot and a half long and dark purple to nearly black at the tip. The dark color is thought to protect it from sunburn during the hours spent feeding in full sun, and it is tough enough to strip leaves from thorny acacia branches without harm. You will see it in action at the feeding station.

The ossicones. The knobs on the head are not true horns or antlers. They are bone covered in skin and fur, present from birth (folded flat, so they do not hurt the mother) and growing thicker with age. Males often wear the tops bald from sparring with their necks.

The coat. Every giraffe’s pattern is as unique as a fingerprint. No two are exactly alike, which is how researchers tell individuals apart in the wild, and how our keepers can tell Kazar, Jill and Asha apart from across the yard.

Kazar showing off the dark tongue. Ossicones, long lashes and the netted coat that gives the reticulated giraffe its name.

How a giraffe spends its day

Giraffes are browsers. In the wild they feed on acacia leaves, along with other leaves, flowers, seed pods and fruit, and where the savanna floor is salty or rich in minerals they will eat soil as well. An adult can spend most of the daylight hours eating, which is why almost any visit will find ours browsing, walking or watching visitors with quiet curiosity.

They are famously light sleepers, getting by on as little as thirty minutes to two hours of sleep a day, usually in short standing naps. Now and then a giraffe will lie down and curl its neck back over its body for a deeper rest, but not for long. Standing up is slow work for an animal this tall, and in the wild a giraffe on the ground is a giraffe at risk.

Watch for the long eyelashes, the way a giraffe splays its front legs to reach the ground, and the surprisingly gentle way it wraps its tongue around a branch.

The feeding platform is wheelchair accessible.

Feed a giraffe at Plumpton Park Zoo

Feeding a giraffe is about as close as most people will ever get to one. Our giraffe feeding station runs at 12:00 noon on weekdays and 11:00am and 1:00pm on weekends for most of the year, and at 11:00am and 1:00pm every day from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Feedings do not take place when the temperature is below 50°F or in inclement weather, and on a blustery day the giraffes may decide they would rather not come over; that is their call to make.

A keeper hands out browse from Memorial Day through Labor Day, and lettuce at other times of year, on a raised platform that is wheelchair accessible, so everyone in the family can take a turn. Feeding costs $5 and needs no booking; just be at the station a few minutes early. If feeding is the part of the day your family is coming for, plan the visit around it rather than hoping to catch them later.

Everything you need to know about giraffe feeding, including what to expect and how it works with school and group visits.

Caring for giraffes at Plumpton

Kazar, Jill and Asha are looked after by trained zookeepers, including keepers with four-year degrees, and an on-staff veterinarian. They live at the Edward C. Plumstead Giraffe Conservation Center, named for the zoo’s founder, whose own giraffe is remembered on the Jimmie the Giraffe page.

Our animal-care team provides nutrition, veterinary oversight, enrichment and daily behavioral observation designed to support each giraffe’s physical and behavioral well-being. Keepers monitor appetite, movement and behavior every day so subtle changes can be identified early. With an animal that carries this much weight on long legs, hoof and leg health gets particular attention. Enrichment gives the giraffes choices and problems to solve, and gifts marked for enrichment go directly to that work; see our animals page for how it is spent.

A keeper with browse at the giraffe building.

Remembering Jimmie

No page about our giraffes would be complete without Jimmie. He came to Plumpton Park Zoo from the Phoenix Zoo as a young calf in 1996 and lived here for 25 years, becoming one of the zoo’s most beloved animals along the way. By the time he passed in November 2021 at the age of 26½, Jimmie was believed to be the oldest living male reticulated giraffe in the world.

He was euthanized after a long battle with chronic hoof and leg problems that veterinarians agreed could no longer be managed; Nick Lacovara, who manages the zoo, said at the time that “it was time to end the progression of his discomfort.” Jimmie was a fixture of countless visits and a true family member to zoo staff, and he is still missed.

Read Jimmie’s full story, including the 2003 photograph of a young volunteer feeding him who later became his veterinarian.

Reticulated giraffes and conservation

The reticulated giraffe was added to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered in 2018. The Giraffe Conservation Foundation puts the wild population at roughly 21,000, down more than 40 percent from an estimated 36,000 thirty-five years ago. The pressures are the familiar ones: habitat loss as rangeland is converted and fenced, poaching, and years of civil unrest across parts of the range that made protection difficult.

For a long time all giraffes were treated as one species with several subspecies, and the sign at our giraffe building still carries the older name Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata. In August 2025 the IUCN formally recognized four giraffe species, and the reticulated giraffe is now its own species, Giraffa reticulata. That matters for conservation because an endangered species draws protection that an endangered subspecies often does not.

Giraffes in human care help people understand a species many did not realize was in trouble; the phrase “silent extinction” was coined for giraffes precisely because their decline went unnoticed for so long. In Africa, community conservancies that protect giraffe rangeland in northern Kenya are among the most effective ways to help wild herds.