- A brown spotless giraffe was photographed at a private game reserve in central Namibia.
- Another similar giraffe was born at a Tennessee zoo in July.
An extremely rare brown spotless giraffe was photographed for the first time in the African wild — just weeks after another one was born at a Tennessee zoo — a conservation organization says.
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation announced in a press release Monday that a young, all-brown, spot-free giraffe was photographed with its spotted mother in a private game reserve in central Namibia.
The discovery may be only the fourth photographic record of a brown spotless giraffe and the first ever in the wild. Most recently, a brown spotless giraffe named Kipekee was born at Brights Zoo in Tennessee on July 31. Before that, a giraffe named Toshiko was born without spots at a Tokyo zoo in 1972, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. Toshiko had an older sibling who was also spotless, the director of Brights Zoo, David Bright, previously told Insider.
Some sightings of rare white spotless giraffes — which have a condition called leucism — have been reported in the wild, but this is the first recording wild sighting of a spotless brown giraffe, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation said.
Fred Bercovitch, a wildlife conservation biologist, previously told Insider that not enough studies have been done to determine exactly how giraffes can come out entirely brown but that it's "almost certainly due to a specific mutation."
"Maybe we do not always need to have explanations for everything. Why don't we simply marvel about the wonders of nature?!" Stephanie Fennessy, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation's executive director and co-founder said in the press release.
"Giraffe are in trouble," she added. "And if we don't act now, our grandchildren might not be able to see any giraffe in the wild when they grow up."
Giraffes have already gone extinct in seven African countries, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, and there are only 117,000 of them remaining in Africa, meaning there's about one giraffe for every four elephants in the African wild.