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
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