Baby Giraffe

In art and culture
The giraffe was considered the "queen of beasts" by Arab prophets and poet for what they considered to be its delicate features and fragile form. Eastern sultans prized them as special pets. Giraffes were also known to the people of the Mediterranean region during antiquity. Pompey apparently kept ten at his theater in Rome. Giraffes were apparently mostly forgotten by the Middle Ages except in legends from Arab travelers. The Medici giraffe was a giraffe presented to Lorenzo de' Medici in 1486. It caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence, being reputedly the first living giraffe to be seen in Italy since the days of Ancient Rome. Another famous giraffe, called Zarafa, was brought from Africa to Paris in the early 19th century and kept in a menagerie for 18 years.
Giraffe is a novel by the author J. M. Ledgard. The work concerns a true incident in which 49 giraffes were slaughtered in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1975 following the suspected outbreak of disease amongst the group. The novel contains extensive information about the species, including the long history of European fascination with the beast and its captivity in zoos.
Giraffes can be seen in paintings, including the famous painting of a giraffe which was taken from Somalia to China in 1414. The giraffe was placed in a Ming Dynasty zoo. At one point the giraffe was associated with the mythical Qilin, and a derivative of that name (kirin) is still used as the word for giraffe in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.