title: Response to "How many species of giraffe are there?"
abstract: It is not unexpected that a proposal, such as ours [1], of four new mammalian species stirs up controversy, as evident in the correspondence by Bercovitch et al.[2]. We appreciate that their concerns are unrelated to the quality of the genetic data, the methodological approach or analyses, but are focused on the interpretation. Thus, we provided an analysis of giraffe speciation based on genomic sequence data, and not just "another viewpoint on giraffe taxonomy" [2]. We maintain our perspective that there is not only one but four species of giraffe (Figure 1).
authors.affiliation: Giraffe Conservation Foundation, PO Box 86099, Windhoek, Namibia.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fennessy
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Goethe University, Institute for Ecology, Evolution & Diversity, Max-von-Laue-Str. 13, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Friederike
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Reuss
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Vikas
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Maria A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.affiliation: Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, Königsbrücker Landstraße 159, 01109 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Melita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vamberger
authors.affiliation: Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, Königsbrücker Landstraße 159, 01109 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Fritz
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Goethe University, Institute for Ecology, Evolution & Diversity, Max-von-Laue-Str. 13, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address: axel.janke@senckenberg.de.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Janke
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D023281:Genomics; D000068276:Giraffes; D008322:Mammals