Kofi

The Somali Giraffe, or more commonly known as Reticulated Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata), is a subspecies of giraffe native to Somalia, northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Reticulated giraffes can interbreed with other giraffe subspecies in captivity or if they come into contact with populations of other subspecies in the wild.

The reticulated giraffe is among the most well-known of the nine giraffe subspecies, and together with the Rothschild giraffe it is by far the giraffe most commonly seen in zoos. Its coat consists of large, polygonal liver-colored spots outlined by a network of bright white lines. The blocks may sometimes appear deep red and may also cover the legs. The extraordinary height of giraffes is attributed to a ritual known as "necking" where two males fight for reproduction rights by slamming their necks into one another. The giraffes with the tallest and strongest necks are victorious and allowed to reproduce, thus passing these genes on to future generations.

The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant. Its scientific name, which is similar to its archaic English name of camelopard, refers to its camel-like face and irregular patches of color on a light background, which bear a vague resemblance to a leopard's spots. The giraffe is also noted for its extremely long neck and legs and prominent horns. It stands 5–6 m (16–20 ft) tall and has an average weight of 1,200 kg (2,600 lb) for males and 830 kg (1,800 lb) for females. It is classified under the family Giraffidae, along with its closest extant relative, the okapi. There are nine subspecies of giraffe, which differ in size, coloration, pattern and range.

The giraffe's range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south and from Niger in the west to Somalia in the east, but it is very scattered. Giraffes usually inhabit savannas, grasslands and open woodlands. They prefer areas with plenty of acacia trees, which are important food sources. Owing to their extreme height, giraffes can browse for vegetation that most other herbivores cannot reach. While adults are nearly invulnerable to predation, lions, leopards, spotted hyenas and wild dogs prey on calves. Although they commonly gather together, giraffe aggregations usually disband every few hours. Male giraffes use their necks to hit each other in combat, a behavior known as "necking". Dominant males each mate with multiple females. Females bear the sole responsibility for raising their young.

The Memphis Zoo, located in Midtown Memphis, Tennessee, is home to more than 3,500 animals representing over 500 different species. Created in April 1906, the zoo has been a major tenant of Overton Park for more than 100 years. The land currently designated to the Memphis Zoo was defined by the Overton Park master plan in 1988, it is owned by the City of Memphis. The zoo is set on 76 acres (31 ha), of which approximately 55 acres (22 ha) are developed.

In 2008, the Memphis Zoo was ranked "#1 Zoo in the U.S." by TripAdvisor.com. The ranking was based on visitor opinions.

Since the early 1990s, the Memphis Zoo has invested over $77 million for renovation and expansion. The zoo's animal inhabitants reside in three zones with 19 exhibits, such as Teton Trek, Northwest Passage and China, home to Giant Pandas Ya Ya and Le Le

The Memphis Zoo is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently. All animals are also heterotrophs, meaning they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance.

Most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago.

The giraffids are ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a common ancestor with deer and bovids. The biological family Giraffidae, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, contains only two living members, the giraffe and the okapi. Both are confined to sub-saharan Africa: the giraffe to the open savannas, and the okapi to the dense rainforest of the Congo. The two species look very different on first sight, but share a number of common features, including a long, dark-coloured tongue, lobed canine teeth, and horns covered in skin, called "ossicones".

The Pecora is a group of hoofed mammals that comprises most of the ruminants, including cattle, sheep, goats, antelopes, deer, giraffes, and pronghorn. The only extant members of the Ruminantia that are not pecorans are the chevrotains, which lack horns and whose four-chambered stomach is less developed than those of the pecorans. This gives rise to the pecorans sometimes being called "horned ruminants". Pecorans are also known as "higher ruminants", because they arose more recently than other ruminant groups. Although Pecora is a well-supported clade, the exact relationships among families within it are in dispute.

Flower, W.H. (1883). "On the arrangement of the orders and families of existing Mammalia". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1883: 178–186. 

Hassanin, Alexandre, & Douzery, Emmanuel J. P. (2003). "Molecular and morphological phylogenies of Ruminantia and the alternative position of the Moschidae". Systematic Biology 52 (2): 206–228. doi:10.1080/10635150390192726. PMID 12746147. 

The even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) are ungulates (hoofed animals) whose weight is borne about equally by the third and fourth toes, rather than mostly or entirely by the third as in odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) such as horses.

Artiodactyla comes from the Greek words artios, meaning entire or even numbered, and dactylos for finger or toe. This group includes pigs, peccaries, hippopotamuses, camels, chevrotains (mouse deer), deer, giraffes, pronghorn, antelopes, sheep, goats, and cattle. The group excludes whales even though DNA sequence data indicate that they share a common ancestor, making the group paraphyletic. The more phylogenetically accurate group is Cetartiodactyla.

There are about 220 artiodactyl species, including many that are of great nutritional, economic, and cultural importance to humans.

A further distinguishing feature of the group is the shape of the astragalus (talus), a bone in the ankle joint, which has a double-pulley structure. This gives the foot greater flexibility.

Ruminantia includes many of the well-known large grazing or browsing mammals: among them cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and antelope. All members of the Ruminantia are ruminants: they digest food in two steps, chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semi-digested cud to re-chew it and thus extract the maximum possible food value.

Not all ruminants belong to the Ruminantia. Camels and llamas are among the exceptions, a suborder known as Tylopoda. Also, there are a number of other large grazing mammals that, while not strictly ruminants, have similar adaptations for surviving on large quantities of low-grade food. Kangaroos and horses are examples.

The Tragulidae are the basal family in the Ruminantia.

The ancestral Ruminantia karyotype is 2n = 48 similar to that of cetartiodactyls.

A mother (or mum/mom) is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally acceptable definition for the term. The male equivalent is a father.

The class Mammalia (mammals) is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: egg-laying mammals (monotremes) and mammals which give live birth (therians). The latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (marsupials) and placental mammals (eutherians).

This list is, as yet, incomplete. However for reasons of space, it has been broken into two sections:

Wildlife photography is the act of taking photographs of wildlife.

Wildlife photography is regarded as one of the more challenging forms of photography. As well as needing sound technical skills, such as being able to expose correctly, wildlife photographers generally need good field craft skills. For example, some animals are difficult to approach and thus a knowledge of the animal's behavior is needed in order to be able to predict their actions. Photographing some species may require stalking skills or the use of a hide/blind for concealment.

While wildlife photographs can be taken using basic equipment, successful photography of some types of wildlife requires specialist equipment, such as macro lenses for insects, long focal length lenses for birds and underwater cameras for marine life. However, since the advent of digital cameras, greater adventure travel and automated cameras, a great wildlife photograph can also be the result of being in the right place at the right time.