h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I heard of a problem giraffes possibly have: To get enough oxygen. When they breathe the air has to go great lengths from lung to nose. Did your hear of this problem and how it is solved?

Thanks for your wealth of information on south Afrika!

I have no idea. Perhaps they have very powerful diaphragms that make a large pressure differential so that the air just floods in. That's how I'd do it. I doubt they use peristalsis...

I'd think they would need extra lung capacity as well, larger even than would generally be expected for that size animal, due to the length of the trachea. I mean, with each inhalation, they will be inhaling a relatively large amount of stale air which is in the trachea. No animal can expel ALL the air from its lungs and windpipe, but the giraffe would have even more trouble than most. Intriguing.

They have very large and strong lungs. I once stroked a sub-adult female giraffe's nose, and the breath came out her nostrils like from a bellows with a whooshing sound. They expel air very forcefully thereby clearing most of the stale air from their lungs and windpipes. My guess, seeing that they get along quite well in the wild, is that they don't have too much trouble getting oxygen.

Well yes, obviously, but if you were designing a giraffe from scratch, how would you arrange for it to get enough air? I might be tempted to put the nose somewhere near the bottom of the neck and leave the neck for use as a food source...

If you want to redesign the giraffe, you can even put its nostrils in the sides of its chest. I have even thoght of a better kind of diaphragm: it exists as a wedge between the lungs, and it pushes first to the one side and then to the other. When it pushes to the right, it squeezes the air out of the right lung while sucking air into the left lung; when it pushes to the left, it squeezes the air out the the left lung while sucking it into the right lung. For this to work there have to be two separate airways, but this will enable the creature to take in and expel ogygen continuously, and it's ribcage doesn't even have to move. Pity God didn't consult me, eh?!

Sounds good - although the muscle groups to do that might be very complex, and it could be fairly energy-intensive as well.