Giraffe-fight! video

This clip of giraffes fighting (basically, bashing their bodies against one another) was shot on safari in Tanzania. It gets pretty vicious. Link (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Nick Mathewson

What do giraffes fight about? Hierarchy? Territory? Mates? All of the above?
dculberson

They fight over who left the toilet seat up.

I’m siding with the one that wants the lid down.
Anonymous

That was pretty impressive.

However, from the first shriek at the beginning, I could tell there was a Japanese lady at the filming. I enjoyed hearing her comment in Japanese about it.

I think she summed up the whole ordeal in the best way any of us can: ouch ouch ouch ouch.
Dybbuk

is that Michael Vick in the back?
Cory Doctorow

Ewan@4 — I stayed there last Xmas, too. The giraffes were totally rad.
online leren

wauw, that is quite bizar
regards
Bob
strider_mt2k

I guess they have to work things out between themselves SOMEHOW.

You do generally think of these creatures as being kinda nice, but then again Hippos look like they’d be cool to hang out with too. -go figure.
Caroline

I’m really surprised by the sheer number of giraffe fight videos on YouTube. Who knew it was such a popular video topic?
bookninja

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more compelling headline than “Giraffe-fight!”. How could you not watch? It might as well say “video-based crack”.

I kept imagining them huffing and puffing like fat guys between flurries, gasping for air and saying, “‘kay, ‘kay, just … gimme a … sec here…” before having at it again.
DaveX

Too bad humans don’t have to fight like that– might slow down violence quite a bit!
Xeni Jardin

I’d like to see a double header with this and bumfights. better yet, bums vs. giraffes. (go giraffes!)
redandjonny

Heres a video of ME fighting a Giraffe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otE9O8hIIBY
redandjonny

and yes…We’re the same redandjonny who wear the stormtrooper helmets.
Crash! Bang!

wow. watching that gave me a headache
ewan

Cory may appreciate this: you can see something very similar if you stay in Disney’s Animal Kingdom lodge. One morning we looked out from our balcony and watched a very similar giraffe fight a few yards away – of course, our 4 year-old thought that the TV was more interesting…
…cool place to stay.
David Jacobs

Waaa
HenryPootel

I can imagine dinosaurs doing that…
Lauren

The worst (best?) part is the sound it makes when they hit each other.
xadrian

I have never seen anything like that. That was startling.

The sounds, the positioning. I’ve always wondered why giraffe’s have horns. It’s like they’ve turned their heads into a sock full of nickels.

I want to watch it again, but I don’t think I can. Big things fighting makes me queasy.
Bazilisk

Necks are for FIGHTING!

I learned about this in a biology class last year. I will have to ask my professor for a link to the actual study. But I know for a fact this hypothesis is legit.

The excuse for why giraffes have long necks is to reach leaves near the tops of trees, right? But if you actually observe them eating, they don’t usually eat the leaves up there, opting for leaves closer to 2/3 their height.

Some biologists postulated in the late 80′s early 90′s that they really evolved such huge necks to compete with other giraffes while fighting.

The males fight over females, and when with a female they fight her in order to mate with her. This behavior is observed all the time. Funny how it’s not really popularized that much, no, giraffes aren’t peaceful creatures…
and that might be why their necks are so damn huge…
Hunty

There’s a nature park in San Diego where you get to ride a pickup truck out into the park and feed giraffes and rhinos. They told us to make sure to feed the giraffes as far outside of the truck as possible, to keep them from sticking their heads into the enclosed space of the back of the truck, freaking out, and bashing us and the truck with their heads. Apparently they frequently kill lions by doing this.