The giraffe undoubtedly holds one of the top spots among all the most astonishing inhabitants of Earth. It is, after all, the world’s tallest animal (over 6 meters), and most notably, the one with the longest neck!
The giraffe is so unusual that it might be classified as a mythical creature rather than a real one—which is precisely how it was perceived in medieval Europe. Giraffes were simply unknown in that region since antiquity. (The ancient Greeks and Romans, however, had seen them and considered them a hybrid of a camel and a leopard, calling it «camelopardalis, ” or „camel-leopard.“) But in 1826, a female giraffe named Zarafa arrived in France—the first of three giraffes gifted to three European monarchs by the Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali. Immediately, „giraffe mania“ swept across Europe: dresses and accessories with spots, hairstyles depicting horns, giraffe figurines, and wallpapers and upholstery featuring giraffes…