A single-colored giraffe, without any of the characteristic spots of animals of its species, has been born at a US zoo, zoo officials announced Tuesday, noting that this is a very rare event.

“A giraffe without spots is something very rare,” David Bright, director of Brights Zoo, in Tennessee, in the southern US, told AFP.

Since 1972, the birth of a giraffe without spots on its skin has been recorded in Tokyo, according to him.

The baby, 1.80 m tall and with brown hair, was born on July 31. Since then, this little female giraffe that does not look like the others “has been growing up with the care of her mother and the specialized staff of the zoo”, it is explained by the authorities of the zoo in a statement.

The spots that giraffes have are mainly used to hide. However, the opposite is happening with this rare giraffe, as it has gathered the spotlight from all over the world.

The zoo management expressed the hope that the plethora of articles devoted to this rare little member of the striped giraffe subspecies will draw attention to the threats facing her species.

“Giraffe populations living in the wild are silently heading towards extinction, with 40% of the wild giraffe population lost in three decades,” Tony Bright, founder of Brights Zoo, noted in the zoo’s statement.