An incredibly rare spotless giraffe was recently born at a zoo in Tennessee and the wondrous creature is believed to be the only one of its kind in the world. The remarkable animal was reportedly born in late July at Bright’s Zoo in the city of Limestone. In announcing the peculiar creature’s arrival on Monday, they marveled that “giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet.” The zoo’s founder, Tony Bright, recalled that the animal’s uniqueness was apparent from the moment of its birth as it clearly sported a coat of brown fur rather than the characteristic pattern of spots seen on nearly every other creature of its kind.
Following the arrival of the surprising-looking animal, zoo director David Bright said they began contacting other facilities “all over the country” to gauge just how unusual the creature might be and the response that they repeatedly received from seasoned professionals was that nobody had seen such a giraffe before. In fact, the only other record of a spotless version of the animal born in captivity occurred at a Japanese zoo in the 1970s. The zoo also performed blood work on the creature to ascertain if there might be some kind of illness that caused her curious condition, but the results indicated that it was perfectly healthy and no different from another giraffe that had been born at the facility a few weeks earlier.
Now standing a whopping six-feet-tall after just a few weeks, the spotless giraffe has seemingly seamlessly adjusted to life within her herd as the zoo indicated that the creature is “thriving.” The circumstances surrounding the animal’s birth are actually rather fortuitous, Tony Bright mused, as “in the wild, they use those spots for camouflage.” so the creature would have faced something of a perilous life had it been born in the wild. The zoo has yet to settle on a name for the animal and have opened up the process to the public by way of a vote on their Facebook page wherein people can choose among the four options of Kipekee, Firyali, Shakiri, and Jamella with the winner being announced on Labor Day.
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