• Question: do giraffes get colds?

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter, Ramya on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Interesting question – I didn’t know the answer, so I looked it up. Firstly, I should note that the common cold can actually be caused by a number of different infectious diseases, such as rhinovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus and influenza. As far as I can tell, giraffes can get infectious diseases, but it doesn’t look like the cold is among them. It might be just because we haven’t found it yet though!

    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Whilst I was in South Africa I did once see a giraffe sneeze although it was a very hot day so I would have been surprised it was because it had a cold. As Bethany says giraffes can pick up infections but I too am struggling to find out if they get a cold. Maybe you should ring up the local zoo to find out.

    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      I looked this up too and couldn’t find anything about giraffes getting colds so maybe we just don’t know yet. I expect they do get some kinds of viruses – all animals do.

Comments