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
Nubian giraffe by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the "Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis" in 1758. He described the giraffe from Ethiopia or Sennar of Eastern Sudan. A 2016 analysis of giraffe subspecies proposed the Rothschild's giraffe ("G. c. rothschildi") could be considered a conspecific ecotype of the Nubian giraffe, however these results are not definitive. Following Linnaeus's description of the Nubian giraffe, several specimens were described by other naturalists and zoologists since the end of the 18th century under different scientific names, which are all considered synonyms of "Giraffa camelopardalis