As mentioned in my prior post, the Angolan giraffe is either a species or subspecies, depending upon the taxonomy you choose. This post is focusing on those Angolan giraffes we saw in Botswana and western Zimbabwe. My prior post was on the giraffes we saw in Namibia which are probably a separate subspecies I referred to as the Namibian giraffe.
We had some pretty good giraffe sightings in the Okavanga Delta of Botswana, but between the early morning light and the setting I had on my camera, the pictures did not come out well.
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| A young giraffe. |
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| Patterns on the Angolan giraffe. |
We saw some giraffes in Zambezi National Park from a helicopter, but nothing when we were on the ground.
In Hwange NP we took a walking safari and had the thrill of seeing about 30 giraffes during our walk. Again, the sun was tricky and some of my photos aren't great, but the experience was amazing.
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| This young giraffe was one of the first ones we spotted. |
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| Note that the spots on the center giraffe are much less uniform and smaller than most of my other pictures for the Namibian and and Angolan giraffes. Even compare it to the giraffes to its left and right, particularly to the right. Its markings seem more like those on a Masai giraffe. |
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| This is my favorite of all my giraffe pictures. Note that the markings on all these giraffes are much less abstract than the one above. |
I think the view of the 30 giraffes during our walking safari in Botswana was our best giraffe experience ever. I felt like I was standing on the Jurassic Park movie set, but instead of dinos emerging from the brush, it was giraffes, which are at least as bizarre-looking as dinos.
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