TYLER, Texas — Meet Marjani! He is one of the five giraffes who make their home at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler.
Marjani measures 16 feet tall and is the only male giraffe at the zoo. He is a fan of tree leaves and lettuce, which he snatches up with his long tongue. In the wild, giraffes can use their unusually long tongues to collect leaves from thorny branches without getting poked.
Marjani is a Nubian giraffe, which is one of the rarest species of giraffe on the planet. The distinction is in his coat pattern, which is often has larger, darker patches than other giraffe species. According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are only around 3,000 Nubian giraffes in the world.
For more behind-the-scenes zoo content, watch CBS19 on Fridays during Morning Y'all for the weekly segment, Exploring the Caldwell Zoo.