Weird and wonderful

The Yorkshire Wildlife Park (YWP) is home to some very weird and wonderful creatures. Whoever would imagine a giraffe? They are graceful beasts, constantly on the move, those long necks swaying, arching and curling round each other like strands of seaweed underwater. (Did you know they only have seven vertebrae in their necks, just like us?) They also have lusciously long eyelashes.  The YWP has four giraffes - two reticulated (with dark patches and bright white lines, native to the Horn of Africa), one hybrid and a rare Rothschild's giraffe (with less well-defined patches and creamier lines). The latter are native to Uganda and Kenya but it is estimated only 1500 survive in the wild. The four of them share a (tall!) purpose built house, big enough for 16 animals, and during the day are free to roam a large area of sand and grassland reserve. 

Whoever would imagine a zebra too? This one is a Grévy's zebra, more donkey than horse-like in appearance. Their patterning, up close, is amazing.

Even odder in appearance is the okapi, looking like it's made of spare parts from other animals! They live in dense forests in central Africa and are rarely seen, but are believed (from studies of their dung) to be declining. The okapi nurtured at YWP are therefore very important as part of the conservation effort.

Here's another weird little creature I'd never heard of - an agouti, a rodent that inhabits the rainforests and savannah of central South America. It has teeth and jaws strong enough to open a brazil nut! Known as 'jungle gardeners', they often forget where they have buried nuts and seeds, and thereby help plants and trees to grow.

In the same walk-through reserve, I saw these mara (below), native to Argentina. They look like a cross between a small deer and a large rabbit but are in fact large rodents, who mate for life and breed... well... like rabbits! They are threatened in the wild because of habitat loss.

Isn't nature amazing?