When discussing high blood pressure, one tends to imagine an overworked human trying to do a lot of work within a short time. However, in the animal kingdom, high blood pressure as a condition is not related to stress factors but rather a very important tool for survival.
On this exclusive list of biological oddities, you will find the giraffe, the tallest land mammal on earth, with the highest blood pressure of any land animal. It sounds like a joke—the life of the three-meter tall animal, slender neck, stretching high up in the sky—yet it is not a joke; it is an incredibly synthesized and tuned piece of biology that makes the life of a giraffe possible.
Now let’s look at how and why the giraffe has a record level of blood pressure and how this physiological feature is the key to their survival.
The Physics of Being Tall: Blood Pressure Challenge That Every Giraffe Face
The giraffe, with its neck stretching up to 6 feet (1.8 meters), faces a unique challenge: oxygenating blood beginning from the heart and moving up to the head, which might be situated 10 floors above the ground level. For that journey to be made, the giraffe’s heart has to pump harder than any other organ in its body. The giraffe’s blood pressure is about two and a half times a human’s blood pressure; the systolic blood pressure of the giraffe is often measured at 280/180 mmHg. On the other hand, the human normal blood pressure range is approximately 120/80 mm Hg.
As the best resort in Maharashtra, we can say that the giraffe has to get blood to its hitched-up brain, and to do so, its heart has to pump blood at a pressure that is more than twice that exerted by human hearts. Without this astronomical blood pressure, blood wouldn’t make it up the giraffe’s neck—this would lead to severe cerebral hypoxia, situation in which the brain is unable to obtain enough oxygen to function and could be fatal.
Anatomy and Adaptations: Seven Ways That Giraffes Help to Manage Hypertension
To support such high blood pressure, the giraffe has developed certain structures in the most peculiar manners. These adaptations not only allow giraffes to maintain stable blood flow but also prevent potential damage due to their high-pressure systems:
A Super-Powered Heart
The heart of a giraffe is as big as a soccer ball and can weigh up to 25 pounds and still be capable of pumping blood to as high as 18 feet. Its left ventricle, which pumps blood to the rest of the body, is nearly twice as thick as many other mammals with such pressure vessels to bear.
Specialized Blood Vessels
The blood vessels in these animals imply that the walls of the ship are thicker and more elastic, unlike the skinny walls in other animals, hence less chance of their rupture owing to hypertension. However, it should be noted that some parts of the giraffe, such as the blood vessels of the neck, are muscled to contract or expand to regulate blood flow and pressure any time the giraffe moves or raises its head.
Why Doesn’t High Blood Pressure Cause Trouble for Giraffes?
For the moment, hypertension in humans ranges from heart ailments to strokes. It is not a pathology in giraffes, though raised blood pressure is considered dangerous in human beings and other mammals. This pressure is well compensated by the cardiovascular system, so giraffes do not experience the same problems as damaged organs or other complications associated with high blood pressure among humans.
They have compliant blood vessels and strong hearts, and the specific elastic blood vessel arrangement is fundamental to their presence.
What occurs when a giraffe drinks water?
Perhaps the most curious event to watch a giraffe do is taking a drink of water for the first time in the morning. As with all their movements, giraffes are not made to walk, and more so not to walk in such a way that they almost touch the ground with all their bodies; instead, the giraffes open their legs wide and with heads bowed down in the ground as if in surrender. This is where the giraffe’s circulatory system is at its best, or, in other words, in its most beneficial position.
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