The Greeks called the giraffe a camelopard, describing the animal as possessing a camel's body but wearing a leopard's coat. |
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The moustache drawn on the camelopard is said to have been modeled after the moustache of Thomas Glover. |
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The camelopard has short horns, covered with hair, truncated at the end, and tufted with hair. |
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Not until the seventeenth century did the English, who fixated on the giraffe's camel-ish shape and leopard-ish coloring, stop calling it a camelopard. |
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In 1827, King George IV was ridiculed, riding on his new gift of a giraffe with his mistress, in The Camelopard or a New Hobby. |
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