[x]

Buy This Print close

Photo
Art Gifts

Browse More Like This

more ▶

More from *MelyssaThePunkRocker

View Gallery · View Prints

Featured in Groups:

#Animal-Lovers-Unite
Animal Lovers!!! UNITE!!

#AnimalArtists-United
Come one come allAnimal Artists

#The-Youngest-Artists
For people 25 and under

Details

Submitted: December 8, 2008
Image Size: 3.5 MB
Resolution: 1667×2216

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 19
Favourites: 8 [who?]
Views: 593 (0 today)

[x]

Onward to the Watering Holeby *MelyssaThePunkRocker

Traditional Art / Drawings / Animals

The scanner glare butchered the details and shading. Plus, I was using stupid Crayola.

I would have been more detailed in the grass areas, but I have other studying to do. >,<

This is extra credit for Biology class in college. I wanted to make it seem more real by having no pen or pencil outlines in it, just like in real life.
I think I am finished this.

WIP 4: [link]
WIP 3: [link]
WIP2: [link]
WIP 1: [link]

Other art for my Biology Class: [link]

Onward To the Water Hole!

Giraffa camelopardalis

When Europeans first traveled to the African plains and set eyes on the great mysterious giraffe, what they thought they were seeing was a medley of different animals in one. They believed it was the body and head of a horse, the spots of a leopard, and the tail of a lion. They were in awe of it. Today, hundreds of years later, we know that this creature is the product of evolution. Males can reach staggering heights of up to 19 feet tall and weight over 500 pounds. The giraffe's large red-brown irregularly-shaped spots on a golden yellow background help it blend in with the grasses it walks among, assisting in its protection from hungry lionesses. The giraffe possess a thick rubbery 20 inch long purple tongue which acts much like an elephant's trunk, as the giraffe can wrap its tongue around thorny treetop edges and pull off twigs and branches and eat them with ease. Its tremendously long neck allows it to browse high in the treetops and keep an eye out for the prowling lions. Amazingly, its neck only has seven vertebrae, just like our necks. These vertebrae are light and long to reduce stress on its body. The neck and legs of the giraffe are, in fact, so long that is has to basically squat with its legs to the side and awkwardly lower its head just to drink water. Baby giraffes even fall at least five feet to the ground when they are born and then learn to run quickly. They can stand nearly immediately after they are born. Newborns are as tall as a man and they feed from their mother's mammary glands, which are not positioned on the belly, like a cow, but they are between the front legs, like an elephant and primates. This mammal is truly amazing.