Giraffa camelopardalis (Linnaeus 1758)

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Artiodactyla, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 637-722 : 672

Giraffa camelopardalis (Linnaeus 1758)

[Cervus] camelopardalis Linnaeus 1758 , Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 66 .

Type Locality: "Habitat in Æthiopia et Sennar"; identified as Egypt, in captivity at Cairo ( Thomas, 1911 a:150); restricted to Sudan, Sennar, by Harper (1940:322) .

Vernacular Names: Giraffe.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. camelopardalis Linnaeus 1758

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. reticulata De Winton 1899

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. rothschildi Lydekker 1903

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. thornicrofti Lydekker 1911

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. tippelskirchi Matschie 1898

Subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis subsp. giraffa von Schreber 1784

Distribution: Disjunct; W and C Africa in Burkina Faso (vagrant), N Cameroon, Central African Republic, S Chad, NE Dem. Rep. Congo, Eritrea (extinct), W and S Ethiopia, Gambia (extinct), Kenya, Mali (extinct), SE Mauritania (extinct), Niger, Nigeria (extinct, now a vagrant), Senegal (extinct), S Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda; no reliable records from Ghana, Guinea, and Togo; may have occurred in Benin; introduced into Rwanda; S Africa in S Angola (extinct?), Botswana, Mozambique (extinct), Namibia, South Africa (originally mostly N of Orange River), Swaziland (extinct, reintroduced), Zambia ( SW and Luangwa Valley), and Zimbabwe. Distribution now much restricted; in W Africa still present in Niger, and N Cameroon but extinct in Mali according to Ciofolo and Le Pendu (2002), apparently very recently; in southern Africa, now naturally distributed no farther south than N Namibia, Botswana and NE South Africa (E Limpopo and E Mpumalanga Provs.). Introduced beyond its former range in South Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (cd).

Discussion: Subspecific synonymy modified from Ansell (1972:13). Reviewed by Dagg (1971, Mammalian Species, 5). Cotterill (2003 a) listed thornicrofti as a species. The names reticulata Weinland, 1863 and australis Rhoads, 1896 have been suppressed, while reticulata De Winton, 1899 has been conserved ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1971 a, 1979 b), even though australis is probably a junior synonym of giraffa, not a senior synonym of reticulata De Winton.