The second is that these communities are completely structured socially, with different communities using the same physical space. The first is that females maintain enduring social bonds with other females in their community, with bonds likely to last over their entire lifetimes. They found that these social dynamics have two major consequences. The membership to these communities, comprising about 60 to 90 individual females, is very stable over time, despite social groups that are made up of these members merging and splitting throughout each day. The team of scientists from UZH and Penn State University previously documented that the adult female giraffes form distinct social communities. While sex differences in natal dispersal are well established in animals, this study is amongst the first to demonstrate how living in a structured society provides a unique opportunity for maturing individuals to find a new social community without having to move to new areas. On the other hand, most young female giraffes remained within the same community into which they were born. Using data on group composition collected over a huge 2200 km 2 area, the team found that most male giraffes leave home once they reach reproductive maturity, and that a significant proportion of these achieve their dispersal by simply switching to new social communities, thereby avoiding the risks of moving far from home. The researchers studied a large population of hundreds of giraffes in northern Tanzania. Doing so would avoid the risks of moving through the unknown. Monica Bond, tested whether animals that live in structured societies comprising social communities that overlap in space with one another could disperse simply by switching communities. A research team, led by University of Zurich (UZH) postdoctoral research associate Dr.
Nevertheless, it has been mostly studied as a spatial process because in most animals, families defend physical areas excluding others, forcing young to have to leave this area to establish their own family. However, dispersal is first and foremost a social process. Dispersal is a fundamental biological process that has been shown to reduce the chances of mating with a relative, ensuring that individuals have healthy offspring. The process of moving away from family is known as natal dispersal. New research published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology shows that this strategy is employed by young dispersing giraffes. These potentially provide opportunities for maturing individuals to disperse socially without having to make large physical displacements. However, many animal societies-including those of humans-have structured social communities that overlap in space with one-another. For most animals, this involves having to make risky journeys into the unknown in the hope of finding new communities in which to settle and reproduce. They spread their legs so they can drink they are focused on drinking not looking for predators.Dispersal, the process where animals reaching sexual maturity move away from family, is important for maintaining genetic diversity and is key to the long-term persistence of natural populations. Another way they get killed, is that when drinking they aren't paying attention. Baby giraffes on the other hand tend to disappear quickly, hyenas like small prey and babies are an easy catch. Since giraffes are tall, some lions fight for a lioness by catching big prey. Giraffes get attacked because of their meat, fur and some scientists say they are attacked for a challenge. Overall, most giraffes don't get attacked. The main predator is a lion or lioness, but there are others. Humans hunt adult giraffes for their fur to sell it's easier for us to catch them with weapons. Giraffes are considered a hard prey to catch even a lion is scared and tend to leave giraffes alone. With a kick like a giraffe, you could stay safe even around carnivores. But it is uncommon for them to take an adult giraffe. A couple of lions can easily take down a giraffe together. If the animal has a pack, they can all take down a giraffe together. If a baby is caught off guard from the mother, and kind of meat eating animal can and will take it down. Wild dogs and a crocodile will take down anything. Giraffes have many predators such as lions, tigers, leopards, ect.