Ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the giraffe was the result of an "unnatural" paring between a camel and a leopard, going so far as to call it a "camelopardalis". That didn't stop them from collecting them during their forays into northern Africa.
In their native Africa, the giraffe was the subject of many folk tales and legends about how it got so tall. One tells the story of a giraffe with a regular sized neck eating too many magic herbs and growing to a dramatic height.
Later on in history, captive giraffes made quite a stir at many of the world's royal courts. The powerful Medicis in Florence once received one as a gift. Unfortunately, that giraffe died quickly in captivity when it caught it's neck in the beams of the horse stables it was kept in. By 1414, a giraffe had made it's way all the way to China, where it was revered as a form of Qilin, a Chinese good omen often referred to as "The Unicorn of China".
