“How the giraffe's long neck evolved has long been an evolutionary mystery” said a recent article.1 For many decades it was thought by evolutionists (i.e. Darwin) that the impetus for a slowly elongating neck of the giraffe was reaching for high foliage on the African plains. Now evolutionists believe it was courtship competition that was possibly “the driving force behind the evolution of long necks” with males confronting each other and swinging their two-to-three-meter-long necks in battle.
Evolutionists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted their study on the activity of a bizarre early giraffoid called Discokeryx xiezhi that allegedly lived “17 million years ago.” “’A full skull and four cervical vertebrae were part of the find,” and it “featured many unique characteristics among mammals, including the development of a disc-like large ossicone [horn-like structure] in the middle of its head,’ said Prof. Deng Tao from IVPP. . .”1
It should be noted while giraffes of today and extinct Discokeryx xiezhi belong to the same superfamily (Giraffoidea), they are not evolutionary relatives due to their neck and skull morphologies differing greatly.
This is also true for the cervical anatomy of another extinct genus of Giraffidae called Samotherium major.
The exceptional occurrence of an almost complete neck of an intermediate giraffid allows for a comprehensive analysis of the anatomical features, and for comparisons to the short-necked okapi and long-necked giraffe. Samotherium major is not a direct ancestor of the giraffe or the okapi, however, it does share several common characteristics with the two extant taxa.2
1. Staff Writer. Strange fossil solves giraffe evolutionary mystery. Phys.org. Posted on phys.org June 2, 2022, accessed June 4, 2022.
2. Danowitz, M. et al. 2015. The cervical anatomy of Samotherium, an intermediate-necked giraffid. Royal Society Open Science. 2(11).
*Dr. Sherwin is Research Scientist at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Pensacola Christian College.
