The giraffe is one of my favourite animals simply because he has been so wonderfully designed. We often take for granted what we see when we step outdoors but when we take the time to take a closer look God never disappoints!
So here is a closer look at the giraffe and I dare you to say that evolution, which is random, could ever produce such a magnificent animal!
The neck of the giraffe averages 6 ft or 1.8 meters in length and weighs ~600 lbs or 272 kgs.
So to pump blood all the way up to the giraffe's head means he needs a huge and powerful pump aka heart to do the job. The giraffe's heart is the most powerful heart in the animal kingdom. The heart of a giraffe is 2 ft long, weighs ~25 lbs and the walls are 3 inches thick.
So let's think about this logically and rationally...
This powerful heart is working to push blood up into the giraffe's head so what should logically happen when the giraffe bends down to take a drink of water? You now have this powerful heart going with gravity instead of against it.
Logically, the giraffe's brain should explode. But it doesn't...why is that?
God designed the giraffe with 4 safety features:
1)In his jugular veins, he was a series of one-way valves that immediately close as soon as the head is lowered.
2)But this puts way too much blood in the carotid artery so the extra blood (after the last valve) is immediately pushed into a special spongy tissue that is located at the back of the giraffe's brain.
3)But this could cause a rupture in the brain but it doesn't because it produces fluid in the brain that acts as a counter pressure to prevent a rupture from happening.
4)To make sure that there are no ruptures anywhere the walls of the giraffe's arteries are thicker than any other mammal.
All of this happens so the giraffe can bend his head down to take a drink of water!!!
Now have you ever felt light-headed or dizzy when you've stood up too fast? This can be caused because gravity causes blood to pool in the veins of the legs and trunk. This pooling lowers the blood pressure and the amount of blood the heart pumps to the brain. Low blood flow to the brain causes the dizziness.
The same thing is happening to the giraffe as he takes a drink of water. So logically and rationally the giraffe should faint when he lifts his head back up from a lack of oxygen. But he doesn't..why is that? I'd also like to point out that giraffe's that have their brains explode or faint after drinking water wouldn't be around for the next evolutionary stage.
Don't worry - God has this covered as well! 🙂
As the giraffe begins to bring his head up the valves in his arteries open back up and the sponge tissue gently squeezes that last bit of oxygenated blood to his brain. There are valves in the vein that goes down the neck and they close so by the time his head is all the way up his blood pressure is fine and he doesn't feel dizzy or faint.
I'll end with a question:
If evolution is totally random and occurs over a long period of time how could the giraffe survive without having all these safety features present and all functioning at the same time?
Angela Grover
Author, It's Time to Fight
Founder of Sanctification Day By Day
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