{"id":6548,"date":"2019-02-25T19:15:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T00:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/?p=6548"},"modified":"2019-02-26T17:05:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T22:05:15","slug":"how-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/2019\/02\/25\/how-long\/","title":{"rendered":"How long <3 does it take a giraffe to swallow?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"320\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/aw022519-8.jpg\" alt=\"How long <3 does it take a giraffe to swallow?\" class=\"wp-image-6536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/aw022519-8.jpg 320w, https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/aw022519-8-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/aw022519-8-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/aw022519-8-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>How long &lt;3 does it take a giraffe to swallow?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Assuming we are discussing the process of drinking and swallowing water rather than food, it takes quite a length of time for a giraffe to drink water due to its highly unusual drinking mechanism. Using its jaw as a plunger pump, with each pumping action taking about 1.5 seconds, the giraffe fills its esophagus after about 17 pumps (25 seconds) for a total volume of 5 <g class=\"gr_ gr_7 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace\" id=\"7\" data-gr-id=\"7\">litres<\/g> (<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/giraffe_drinking\">bit.ly\/giraffe_drinking<\/a>). After this drinking episode, the water is still estimated to be in the giraffe&#8217;s esophagus (about 1m down) when it lifts its head; hence additional time is needed to travel down the second <g class=\"gr_ gr_8 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace\" id=\"8\" data-gr-id=\"8\">metre<\/g> of the giraffe&#8217;s throat by peristalsis (4cm\/s) aided by gravity, perhaps less than another 25 seconds. I would estimate between 35-45 seconds in total, for filling its mouth and half its throat and then transporting the water to its stomach, completing the full action of drinking and swallowing water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assuming we are discussing the process of drinking and swallowing water rather than food, it takes quite a length of time for a giraffe to drink water due to its highly unusual drinking mechanism. Using its jaw as a plunger pump, with each pumping action taking about 1.5 seconds, the giraffe fills its esophagus after &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/2019\/02\/25\/how-long\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How long <3 does it take a giraffe to swallow?\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6620,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}