Giraffe up. The calf emerges head and front legs first, having broken through the fetal membranes, and falls to the ground, severing the umbilical cord. The mother then grooms the newborn and helps it stand up. A newborn giraffe is tall. Within a few hours of birth, the calf can run around and is almost indistinguishable from a one-week-old. However, for the first 1–3 weeks, it spends most of its time hiding; its coat pattern providing camouflage. The ossicones, which have lain flat while it was in the womb, become erect within a few days. Mothers with calves will gather in
Honanotherium on low-lying trees in the savannah environment, although its shorter neck shows that it probably fed on different plants than the extant giraffe. Honanotherium Honanotherium is a genus of extinct giraffid from the late Miocene of Henan Province, China, and East Azerbaijan Province, northwestern Iran. It was closely related to "Bohlinia" and was once thought to be ancestral to the modern giraffe (genus "Giraffa"). The living animal would have resembled a modern giraffe, but, somewhat shorter, and with more massive ossicones. The first part of the generic name, "honano" refers to the Henan () province of China, where the first