The longsighted , spotted cervix of giraffes are distinctive and eye - catching , but Gemina the giraffe ’s neck was strike for an entirely different reason . Born in 1986 at the San Diego Wild Animal Park , Gemina move north to hold out at the Santa Barbara Zoo before she was a year old . At the sentence , she appear to have completely normal cervix vertebrae , but then around age 3 , her neckstarted protrude out oddly .
Zookeepers could n’t fix what was make her neck to bend . Although Gemina engage a tumble at historic period two , X - shaft of light did n’t bespeak that she was bruise in any way . X - rays did reveal , however , that two vertebra in her neck ( her C3 and C4 vertebrae ) were merge . Veterinarians could n’t figure out why her vertebrae had ostensibly spontaneously fused together — and this phenomenonhadn’t been documentedin a camelopard since 1902 — but the result was a severe bend that became more and more pronounced each yr until it there was almost a 90 - degree crook in her neck .
Gemina ’s case suffer out because her cervix malformation was highly unusual in giraffe whose necks were not broken . There is a more recent video of anadult male Giraffa camelopardalis in Botswanawith a crooked neck , and although it ’s not as severely bent as Gemina ’s , people speculated that his cervix could have been bent due to a nativity defect or being in a fight . ( Fighting — called " necking"—can often be a causal agency of broken in neck forgiraffes , though they do n’t usually die from such outcome of aggression . This adultmale giraffe in Tanzaniais another such example . )
Despite her neck , Gemina lived a relativelynormal lifeat the Santa Barbara Zoo . She grow to be 13.5 feet tall , and her unusual appearing attracted visitors from all over . Although her neck opening was precipitously bent , animal scientist said that she was not in any pain or irritation , and the other giraffe did n’t do by her differently . Her peripheral imaginativeness , however , was slightly modified , and her tongue was shorter than other Giraffa camelopardalis ' , so she was fed separately . At five age old , in 1991 , shegave birthto a baby giraffe that after choke of pneumonia .
The Santa Barbara Zoo ’s director of animal curriculum and preservation called Gemina the “ most famous individual we had . ” In 2006 , she appear on TV in an episode ofThe Miracle Workers , serving as a persona model for a immature boy with scoliosis . The following year , Santa Barbara residentsvoted Gemina number onein a radio post opinion poll called " Seven Wonders of Santa Barbara . "
Gemina die of former old age in 2008 when she was 21 . She wasimmortalized in a book , Gemina : The Crooked - Neck Giraffe , with payoff snuff it to tolerate the zoological garden she called home for most of her spirit . The zoo nowfeatures a plaquehonoring her memory .
