Rare spotless giraffe born in US zoo

Just three weeks old, a giraffe in the southern US state of Tennessee is already making headlines for its unique characteristics, or rather lack thereof: it has no spots.

Described by Bright's Zoo director David Bright as very rare, the animal known as a reticulated giraffe was born on July 31 and now stands six feet tall.

Bright said the female is "a beautiful solid brown," without any of the species' distinctive patterns which help to camouflage it in the wild.

It's the first known giraffe born without any spots since 1972 in Japan, he said.

The baby's name is yet to be chosen from a list proposed by users on the zoo's Facebook page.

She "is thriving under the care of her attentive mother and the zoo's expert staff," Bright said in a statement, adding that he hoped the media attention would help bring awareness to the threats facing wild reticulated giraffes.

Tony Bright, the zoo's founder, said "wild populations are silently slipping into extinction, with 40 percent of the wild giraffe population lost in just the last three decades." (AFP)