Six years ago, conservation scientist Michael Brown and his colleagues were conducting population studies and photographing giraffes in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, when they came across something unusual. It was a giraff that was 9 feet tall. 

“The initial reaction was disbelief,” Brown, who is a conservation science fellow with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

Normally, giraffs are 16 feet tall. What the scientists believed they discovered was a species of dwarf giraff, whom they nicknamed Gimli.

Their rare features and diminutive stature are considered extraordinarily rare. Many animal lovers and celebrities have fallen in love with them. When photos of the dwarf giraffes began circulating online, many people assumed the images had been manipulated. They are cute and quite adorable, and caused a buzz among people who have exotic animals as pets. But could dwarf giraffes be kept as exotic domesticated pets? The answer is not what animal lovers or the elite aristocrats would want to hear. 

It was once thought there was just one species of giraffe, but analyses of morphological and DNA data have revealed there could be as many as eight living species and seven extinct species. However, at this time, the most complete molecular evidence suggests there may be four species of giraffe.  But, Brown says it’s difficult to say for certain what might be causing these types of skeletal dysplasia in these two giraffes. 

“As you note, both the giraffe are male, but it’s unclear if these cases of dwarfism are sex linked,” Dr Michael Brown said. “There could be different causes in the two different giraffes, especially given the slightly different presentations of the two giraffes.” 

 Dwarfism may be a novelty or it could be a warning sign of the declining genetic health in Africa’s wild giraffe populations. Even though female giraffes tend to be shorter than males, it would be nearly impossible for an 8 or 9-foot male to mount even the shortest female “unless they get a stepping stool,” O’Connor said. 

The cause of this dwarfism remains a mystery. Although random mutations can give rise to the condition, dwarfism in captive animals has been associated with inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity. Whether these factors influenced Gimli’s and Nigel’s dwarfism remains unclear. 

“Giraffes are undergoing a silent extinction in Africa”, said Julian Fennessy, Director and Co-Founder of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. 

Dwarf Giraffes can’t be considered as exotic pets, because the ones that were discovered are both males and it’s hard for them to breed or reproduce with normal size giraffes due to their size and medical condition, as well as having rare form of dwarfism that gives them numerous problems. It would be problematic for anyone wanting to own one just because they look cute and adorable.