Derek Lee
Adult female giraffes who spend time with lots of other females live longer than less sociable animals.
Monica Bond at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and her colleagues observed 512 female giraffes over 1500 square kilometres in the Tarangire Ecosystem in northern Tanzania. They surveyed the landscape six times a year between 2012 and 2016 and took photographs of any female giraffes they encountered.
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The team used a piece of software called WildID to identify giraffes from their spot patterns. Each giraffe is born with a unique pattern of spots and these remain unchanged throughout their life, says Bond.
The researchers built a giraffe social network – based on similar research studying human ones – to map each female giraffe’s relationships with other females, the strength of these relationships and their average group size.