The Blue Giraffe mystery extends far deeper. Together with Mtengeni he observes not just the animal in question but another giraffe with a goat-like beard, only six feet long, a green hippopotamus with pink spots, and a two-headed rhinoceros. Other creatures are so mutated their very survival is threatened, and Mtengeni is concerned about the long-term prospects of the animal population. Establishing camp in the bush, the two are separated when the warden goes out into the night for firewood and Cuff, hearing what he takes for a native woman's scream from another direction, heads off to investigate. He finds the woman, treed
The Blue Giraffe to intelligence by scientific means can be found in his later novella "The Virgin of Zesh" (1953). De Camp reuses the plot feature of the protagonist gaining sanctuary with a nonhuman race, facing an unwelcome marriage, and being saved by the reluctant bride's betrothed in his later novel "The Pixilated Peeress" (1991). In that novel Thorolf Zigramson, the hero, is adopted into a tribe of "trolls" (remnant Neanderthals), whose chief seeks to cement the alliance by the same expedient attempted by Indlovu in "The Blue Giraffe." The Blue Giraffe "The Blue Giraffe" is a science fiction story on the concept