Giraffes More Speciose Than Expected

By: Gabriella Greer

Have you ever wondered about how many species there really is on the earth? There are roughly 8.7 million living unique species on the earth today, which is estimated to only be one percent of all the species that have ever been on the planet. But what makes a specie different from the others? Why are there about 3,000 different species of spider? The answer is (for the most part) fairly straightforward. If the two species cannot produce a viable offspring in the wild, then they are a different species. A good example is the mule. When a horse and donkey mate, they produce a mule which is sterile.

Now that you know how species classification works, how many elephant species do you think there are? What about giraffes? Until about seven years ago, there were only two species of elephant with subspecies fitting under the main ones. Now there is discovered to be three. Likewise, recently there was a research done by Janke’s research group at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in cooperation with colleagues from the Senckenberg Natural History Collections of Dresden, Germany where they analyzed DNA samples of giraffes. They looked at all the subspecies genetic makeup to determine which of them were similar.
The results redefined the species we previously knew as giraffes. In some cases, they found no variation in two of the subspecies. In other words, the Rothschild giraffe subspecies is actually genetically identical with the Nubian giraffe. The same thing happened with the Thronicroft’s giraffe and the Masai giraffe. Because of these findings, the researchers discovered that there are actually four distinct species of giraffe with some subspecies belonging to one of these four.
After discovering this, the researchers began to look at the population numbers and realized that prior to this new classification, the population of giraffes in the wild were a staggering 80,000. Now that there are actually four species of giraffes, the number plummet even further towards extinction. This realization has stressed the cause for saving the now four giraffe species from extinction.
Ever since I was very young I have always loved going to zoos and aquariums. I am fascinated with the similarities between humans and other organisms in their genetic makeup. This article stuck out to me because I was surprised that I have never known how many species of giraffe there were. It is incredible to me that there are some that are now not the same species at all. This research finding is shocking to realize that the giraffes of the world are closer to extinction than we had ever thought. A giraffe is an iconic animal that most little kids know about and it is very depressing to me to think that without any prevention, the wild population will cease to exist.

Reference: (http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2016/09/08/giraffes_more_speciose_than_expected.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+biologynews%2Fheadlines+%28Biology+News+Net%29)