All over the world, people find giraffes amazing. The giraffe is the tallest animal in the world. Its legs and tail are taller than most people. Its tongue is very long, 18 inches. The front part of its tongue is an unusual color, black. Unlike most other large animals, giraffes do not threaten (威胁) people. Yet to many scientists the most amazing thing about this gentle giant is its heart.

To understand how amazing the giraffe’s heart is, put your head lower than your heart. Keep it there for a few minutes. Then lift your head up very quickly. Do you feel dizzy? This is the effect of a change in blood pressure. The heart has to quickly pump blood to your brain to stop you from feeling dizzy or from fainting.

When a giraffe lifts its head up from the ground, it has to lift its 250-kilo neck more than 15 feet in the air. How can it do this without fainting? The giraffe’s heart is really large. It is almost two feet long and weighs about 10 kilos. It can pump 60 liters of blood in a minute. The large artery (动脉) that carries blood from the heart up the long neck of the giraffe is also unusual because it has a muscle in it. This muscle helps keep the giraffe’s blood pressure.

In 1988, a writer, Michael Allin, learned that a giraffe arrived in Marseille, a city in the south of France, in 1826. It was a gift to the king of France Charles X. He decided to go to Ethiopia, in East Africa, where the giraffe was born. He traveled to Egypt on the Nile River. This was the same way the giraffe came to Egypt where he discovered the reason for the gift. Muhammad Ali, an important Egyptian leader, did not want the French to enter a war. He sent the giraffe to King Charles X.

However, it was difficult to transport a giraffe in 1826. It traveled from Egypt to France on a ship. The giraffe was so tall that it couldn’t fit in the lower deck of the ship. This was quite a problem until someone decided to cut a hole in the top deck of the ship. The giraffe’s legs were below, and its long neck came up through the hole.

No one knew how to get such a large animal from Marseille to Paris, so the giraffe had to walk the 880 kilometers. All along the way, people came to watch the gentle giant. Six weeks after it left Marseille, the giraffe finally arrived in Paris, where 100,000 people came to see this amazing creature. Today, we still look at the giraffe in amazement. There is no other animal like it on earth.

A sea turtle climbed out of the ocean. It was just before midnight. It arrived to lay eggs.

Sea turtles have been doing this for 200 million years. Sea turtles lived at the time as the dinosaurs.

The sea turtle had to survive plastic rubbish, fish nets and oil spills to get here. There is another danger. The Earth has been getting warmer. This makes the sand hot. Warm sand makes the turtle eggs hatch (孵化) as females (雌性).

This is a problem. Female sea turtles are very important because they lay eggs. But male turtles are also needed to help make babies. Without enough males, sea turtles could die out.

Every year, sea turtles swim to Cape Verde. It is a country in West Africa. About 30000 sea turtles nest (筑巢) there. This is one-sixth of all of Earth’s nesting sea turtles.

Scientists from Great Britain studied the turtles there. They found 21 out of 25 young turtles were females.

“Males here will die out in 20 to 30 years.” said Adolfo Marco Llorente. He is studying the turtles on Boa Vista. It is one of Cape Verde’s island. Without males, the turtles cannot have more babies.

Businesses on Cape Verde are worried. Tourists come to see the sea turtles. The tourists buy local things like pottery. They would lose money if turtles died out.

Scientists have looked at sea turtles in other warm areas. There are more female turtles there, too.

84% of sea turtles hatchlings in Cape Verde are now female

This is worrying, so scientists have found ways to keep the turtle nests cool. Keeping the eggs cool means more male turtles can be hatched. One way is to move the eggs under the trees or bushes. Scientists have also put the eggs into smaller groups. Many eggs close together can heat up.

Llorente’s team collects the eggs in a bag. Then they bring them to a place on the beach behind a fence. The fence keeps animals away that want to eat the eggs. It also lets the scientists watch the temperature of the eggs.