Gimli is an adolescent male Nubian Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis). He was first spotted in December 2015 in Murchinson Falls National Park, Uganda, East Africa, by researchers from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF). Once every four months, the GCF takes a populational survey in which they photograph and calculate the measurements of these mammals in a number of African countries. Gimli was last seen in March 2017, at which time he measured approximately 2.8 meters (m) in height, at least 0.5 m smaller than the average for giraffes his age—adult male giraffes usually reach 5 m tall. In May 2018, another team from the GCF was introduced to Nigel, a young male Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) living on a farm in Namibia, southwestern Africa. He was 2.5 m tall when he was seen in 2020, and footage suggested he had difficulty walking. Gimli and Nigel are the first recorded examples of dwarfism in wild giraffes (BMC Research Notes, December 30, 2020). “Instances of wild animals with these types of skeletal dysplasias are extraordinarily rare,” biologist Michael Brown of the GCF and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
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Gimli and Nigel, two dwarf giraffes
Nigel the dwarf giraffe alongside an adult male on a farm in Namibia in 2018
Emma Wells
