She was hard to spot.
A spotless Angolan giraffe was recorded walking with her mother in the wild at a private game reserve in Namibia, only the second of its kind in the world, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation announced Monday.
The neck-turning discovery came just weeks after a spotless giraffe named Kipekee was born at a Tennessee zoo.
Kipekee was believed to be the only living spotless giraffe in the world until the sighting at the Mount Etjo Safari Lodge.
Before that, only two spotless Angolan giraffes had ever been recorded, both in Japanese zoos, according to the foundation.
The female mammal lacks the “individually identifiable” unique patterns that allows researchers to be able to track populations, the group said.
“The lack of spots could be caused by genetic mutations or recessive genotype in one or more genes related to the pattern, but without detailed genetic analysis, these are mere speculations,” Julian Fennessy, the wildlife organization’s co-founder, said in the release.
The group said giraffes were facing a “a silent extinction,” and hoped the news would “inspire people to stand tall for giraffes and to raise critical funds” to protect their dwindling population, which it says now sits at 117,000 continent-wide.
