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
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