Spotless arrival: Rare giraffe without coat pattern is born at Tennessee zoo

A giraffe born without spots at a northeastern Tennessee zoo may be plain, but she's anything but ordinary. The female reticulated giraffe was born July 31 at the family-owned Brights Zoo in Limestone, a rural community in northeastern Tennessee. David Bright, one of the zoo’s owners, says the plain brown animal is a rarity: Research found another giraffe that was born without a pattern in Tokyo in 1972 and two others before that. He says the zoo's operators typically don't post about its babies, but they hope the attention helps conservation efforts for the declining numbers of giraffes in the wild. The zoo is asking the public to help pick a name for the animal.