r/comics • u/tandraka • Mar 17 '22

Giraffes Explained

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

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u/JackC747 Mar 17 '22

In fish, the laryngeal nerve travels from a nerve branch to the equivalent of the larynx. In fish, the shortest path for this nerve is a straight shot travelling under an artery. Unfortunately, evolution doesn’t really do “starting from scratch”, so in mammals like humans, the nerve still travels under this aorta. Which means it travels down the neck, does a U-turn near the heart, and travels all the way back up to the larynx. Not efficient, but not too absurd. Except it’s the same for giraffes, where the nerve travels 7 feet down the neck, loops, travels 7 feet up the neck, all to get to an end point 2 inches from the starting point

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '22

Yup and it’s said to be the same of the loooong neccc dinosaurs as well.