White lions, white elephants and now a white giraffe. Man has long been fascinated with nature's quirks, and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) researcher Charles Foley has finally achieved his goal of finding a white giraffe.Since hearing tales of the peculiar beast in 1993, Foley has been looking for a white giraffe in Tanzania's Tarangire National Park.
"Despite intensive searching, I never saw the giraffe. And by 1994, the sightings stopped coming in, so I assumed it had died, either at the hand of man or beast." During his long-term research on the park's savanna elephant populations, he kept his eye open for a telltale flash of white.
Now his persistence has been rewarded, and Newswise reports that he finally spotted the giraffe during an aerial survey of the park's sub-population of elephants. "I looked...blinked...looked again...and it was still there." After searching for so long, Foley was not content with just a quick glimpse.
He asked pilot David Moyer, fellow WCS researcher, to make another pass over the area. Travelling at 100km/hr, they flew just over he treetops, with Foley pointing his camera out of the window.
Twelve years of searching paid off when he was able to snap a photo of the unusual herbivore. "The resulting photo reflects a slight juggling of the camera, yet the proof is there to see - a mostly white giraffe with small dark blotches on its body. Only the bottom half of its legs were the more traditional brown colour."
Giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis, are the tallest land animals on earth thanks in part to their distinctive necks which alone can reach alm...