For nearly three decades, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and our partners have dedicated ourselves to unraveling the complexities of giraffe genetics and taxonomy. Contrary to the previous assumption of one species with nine subspecies, groundbreaking findings have revealed the existence of four distinct giraffe species and seven subspecies.
Through extensive collaboration with experts and the support of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) in Germany, DNA samples and data from almost every major giraffe population across Africa have been gathered and meticulously analyzed. This rigorous genetic research has enabled a deeper understanding of giraffe phylogeography, geography, and conservation status.
Each of the four giraffe species inhabits geographically distinct regions in Africa. While hybridization has been observed in zoos, evidence of such interbreeding occurring naturally in the wild does not exist.
With more than 1,000 giraffe tissue samples collected to date, field sampling is largely complete in most parts of Africa and additional sampling is only done to gain a more detailed understanding of mixing of subspecies by ill-informed historical translocations.
In addition to genetic evidence, the existence of four species is also supported by morphological differences based on an extensive skull morphology study.
