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That was my first thought as well, a really nasty case of papillomatosis (= warts all over the place) which is caused by the papilloma virus. I'm not familiar with wildlife diseases of Southern Africa, so maybe a local vet would be more helpful in solving that question

Hi Guys, thanx for the info. It is the first time I had seen something like this.

Kwenga, our guide at the time told us it was a virus so he ws correct on that score, but then mentioned that the 'warts/lumps' fell off. I found this rather difficult to beleive.

Where is Danie and the team They must have a vet that can assist us So until then, I can say our friendly vet Kwenga, has confirmed that it is a bad case of warts caused by a virus.

I don't know about the warts 'falling off' - warts usually just disappear after a while - which can take from a few weeks to a year or so to happen.

I believe that warts can increase or decrease in quantity depending upon the general health of the animal - if the animal is unusually stressed (lack of nutrition, old age, etc) the virus will continue to cause new growths or, if the animal's health improves, the warts will disappear given time.

Warts on humans disappear too after time. It's just a virus. Whether you burn them off or not is up to you.

Same is true for animals, we see it round here esp. in cattle and dogs, and they usually disappear no matter what you do or don't do. It's considered a self-limiting disease, so when you mount a proper immune reaction against the virus, the warts will be gone.

I have seen quite a number of giraffes in the last two weeks with what you have described here. Although none as bad as these pics. On most of the ones I saw the warts were just starting or are disappearing.
On one though it was an open wound where the oxpeckers were busy pecking at.
Was wondering what it could be but I see the forumers have already sorted out the mystery for me.

Here is a bit of handy info for you all, how to sex a Giraffe when it is drinking? The males splay their legs when drinking, and the females, well they are ladies, and as such keep their front legs together when drinking. Neat hey???

I saw these pictures posted a while back and found it very interesting. I did some research as to why this happens. All I could find was that this is a unique feature Giraffe have, the ability of laying down bony material around the skull. This is mainly done by bulls and increases the weight of the skull as much as 3 times that of a female. This can with time cause them to be covered with bony lumps. These bony growths often grow on one side of the skull, so I think this guy could have let this get out of hand or these are some other growths.

While I was doing all this research I found some very interesting information which I thought I would share.

The coat pattern on each giraffe is unique, the same as a zebra's stripes are unique to each individual. Like a fingerprint.

I have always been amazed at the way a giraffe drinks water. It goes down with its head to ground level or water level and suddenly pulls up its head with a spray of water flying out in front of it. I am sure some of you have seen this. I always wondered about the blood flow to the head and back from the head when it did this.

The heart has to pump blood to the brain when the giraffe is standing and that is about 2.5m up and when the giraffe drinks water the heart has to pump blood down to the head which is also about 2.5m. What's really amazing is that when it drops its head to drink, the blood pressure stays constant in the head and when it pulls its head up from drinking, the blood pressure still remains constant. This is because it has valves on the jugular veins that stop the blood from rushing back and forth. I call them non-return valves. The valves close when the giraffe drops its head and to compensate for the pressure, the blood vessels are very elastic, so they stretch to compensate for the huge pressure, otherwise the blood vessels would burst. The same happens when it lifts its head.

There is a lot more info HERE.
Jose also supplied some interesting links earlier in a different thread, I found this one interesting.

I recently saw a fully grown male giraffe with two scars on the neck, about one third up the neck. Both scars more or less round, and the same distance apart as the distance between the horns. I am very curious about the cause of the wounds, and was wondering if a fight between two bulls can cause open wounds. Has anybody seen giraffes injure each other like that? It seems very high for a predator to reach there.

Hi Chris, haven't seen anything like that but your story reminded me of the 50/50 insert on Veldfocus on Sunday.

They showed a video where to Giraffes were fighting. The one slammed his head backwards and connected with the other ones head.

It knocked the other one totally out cold. I've never seen anything like that I nearly wet myself laughing (sorry, but it was very funny) when the other one dropped like a cartoon character.

Hi Chris, I've also seen this before and have photos of 2 giraffes with scars like that which we've seen on our recent trip. I post the photos a little later. First have to edit and upload.

When I saw thse scars I assumed it was battle scars. The bulls put a lot of force behind those blows and I'm sure it can cause damage.

Let me get to work on those photos.

Here is 2 giraffes with the type of scars Chris mentioned. We saw both of them in the Satara region in February 2006

I was told by a ranger that the round scars are a result of necking.
Here is an interesting site with some pics:

Hi

New to this, but here goes...

During a visit to Kruger in January 2006, I saw a giraffe with strange growths on it's body. It looked like large black, swollen blisters, especially around the face, upper neck and at the back of it's rump. I took photos, and would like to know if I could place them on this forum for viewing, as this was quite unusual and I would like to know what was wrong with animal. BTW, it was browsing and it did not appear to be in poor state.

Welcome on this forum Pardus and we hope you will have a great time. I think that it will be very interesting to put your giraffe pics on this forum for comment about it, so please do.