Nervous System
Something that is very different about the giraffes left recurrent laryngeal nerve is that it's 12 feet longer than the right. This nerve is longer in the giraffe than in any other living animal do to the fact that the left nerve loops under the arch while the right nerve is travels directly upwards. The left nerve is over 6 ft 7 inches long. Each nerve cell in this path begins in the brain stem and passes down the neck along the vagus nerve, then branches off into the recurrent laryngeal nerve which shoots right back up the neck to the larynx. Because of how much area these nerve cells travel, they have a length of nearly 5 meters in larger sized giraffes. The giraffes brain is similar to the brain of domestic cattle.
Something that is very different about the giraffes left recurrent laryngeal nerve is that it's 12 feet longer than the right. This nerve is longer in the giraffe than in any other living animal do to the fact that the left nerve loops under the arch while the right nerve is travels directly upwards. The left nerve is over 6 ft 7 inches long. Each nerve cell in this path begins in the brain stem and passes down the neck along the vagus nerve, then branches off into the recurrent laryngeal nerve which shoots right back up the neck to the larynx. Because of how much area these nerve cells travel, they have a length of nearly 5 meters in larger sized giraffes. The giraffes brain is similar to the brain of domestic cattle.