There are only five well-documented fatal lightning strikes on giraffes between 1996 and 2010. But due to the population of the species being just 140,000 during this time, it makes for about 0.003 lightning deaths per thousand giraffes each year. This is 30 times the equivalent fatality rate for humans.

Source

Pic by Luca Galuzzi

  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    How about the fact that humans live all across the world, even in places where you don’t really have lightnings?

    Wouldn’t we have to compare the number of humans hit by lightning, only in the areas where giraffes live?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_lightning

    The articles only compares to humans in the US… This is very unscientific especially comming from this media!

    • lengau@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      While that’s true and what I’m about to say could be legend rather than reality, I grew up being told that giraffes also tend to go to the top of a hill during storms, making them more likely to be struck by lightning.