The giraffe is an African artiodactyl mammal, the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant. It is traditionally considered to be Giraffa camelopardalis, with nine subspecies. However, the existence of up to eight extant giraffe species has been described, based upon research into the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, as well as morphological measurements of Giraffa. Seven other species are extinct, prehistoric species known from fossils; the giraffe's chief distinguishing characteristics are its long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones, its distinctive coat patterns. It is classified under the okapi, its scattered range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south, from Niger in the west to Somalia in the east. Giraffes inhabit savannahs and woodlands, their food source is leaves and flowers of woody plants acacia species, which they browse at heights most other herbivores cannot reach. They may be preyed on by lions, spotted hyenas and African wild dogs. Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring, or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations.

Males establish social hierarchies through "necking", which are combat bouts where the neck is used as a weapon. Dominant males gain mating access to females, which bear the sole responsibility for raising the young; the giraffe has intrigued various cultures, both ancient and modern, for its peculiar appearance, has been featured in paintings and cartoons. It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable to extinction, has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Giraffes are still found in numerous national parks and game reserves but estimates as of 2016 indicate that there are 97,500 members of Giraffa in the wild. More than 1,600 were kept in zoos in 2010; the name "giraffe" has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah borrowed from the animal's Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as "fast-walker". There were several Middle English spellings, such as jarraf and gerfauntz; the Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s. The modern English form developed around 1600 from the French girafe.

"Camelopard" is an archaic English name for the giraffe deriving from the Ancient Greek for camel and leopard, referring to its camel-like shape and its leopard-like colouring. Living giraffes were classified as one species by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, he gave it the binomial name. Morten Thrane Brünnich classified the genus Giraffa in 1772; the species name camelopardalis is from Latin. The giraffe is one of only two living genera of the family Giraffidae in the order Artiodactyla, the other being the okapi; the family was once much more extensive, with over 10 fossil genera described. Their closest known relatives may have been the extinct deer-like climacocerids. They, together with the family Antilocapridae, have been placed in the superfamily Giraffoidea; these animals may have evolved from the extinct family Palaeomerycidae which might have been the ancestor of deer. The elongation of the neck appears to have started early in the giraffe lineage. Comparisons between giraffes and their ancient relatives suggest that vertebrae close to the skull lengthened earlier, followed by lengthening of vertebrae further down.

One early giraffid ancestor was Canthumeryx, dated variously to have lived 25–20 million years ago, 17–15 mya or 18–14.3 mya and whose deposits have been found in Libya. This animal was medium-sized and antelope-like. Giraffokeryx appeared 15 mya in the Indian subcontinent and resembled an okapi or a small giraffe, had a longer neck and similar ossicones. Giraffokeryx may have shared a clade with more massively built giraffids like Sivatherium and Bramatherium. Giraffids like Palaeotragus and Samotherium appeared 14 mya and lived throughout Africa and Eurasia; these animals were longer with broader skulls. Paleotragus may have been its ancestor. Others find. Samotherium was a important transitional fossil in the giraffe lineage as its cervical vertebrae was intermediate in length and structure between a modern giraffe and an okapi, was more vertical than the okapi's. Bohlinia, which first appeared in southeastern Europe and lived 9–7 mya was a direct ancestor of the giraffe. Bohlinia resembled modern giraffes, having a long neck and legs and similar ossicones and dentition.

Bohlinia entered China and northern India in response to climate change. From there, the genus Giraffa evolved and, around 7 mya, entered Africa. Further climate changes caused the extinction of the Asian giraffes, while the African giraffes survived and radiated into several new species. Living giraffes appear to have arisen around 1 mya in eastern Africa during the Pleistocene; some biologists suggest. G. jumae was larger and more built while G. gracilis was smaller and more built. The main driver for the evolution of the giraffes is believed to have been the changes from extensive forests to more open habitats, which began 8 mya. During this time, tropical plants disappeared and were replaced by arid C4 plants, a dry savannah emerged across eastern and northern Africa and western India; some researchers have hypothesised that this new habitat coupled with a different diet, including acacia species, may

The Socialist Party of Senegal is a political party in Senegal. It was the ruling party in Senegal from independence in 1960 until 2000. In the 2000 presidential election, the party's candidate and previous incumbent, Abdou Diof, was defeated by the leader of the Senegalese Democratic Party, Abdoulaye Wade. Ousmane Tanor Dieng has been the First Secretary of the party since 1996 and was the presidential candidate in 2007 and 2012; the best-known figure of the Socialist Party was Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first President of Senegal. The Socialist Party of Senegal's goal is to work on the implementation of "democratic socialism" into Senegal's political atmosphere; the implementation of "democratic socialism" includes the establishment of an open, humanitarian society, while preserving African identity. Since 1976, the Socialist Party of Senegal is the official socialist party choice for the country. There are about 1.2 million members in the Socialist Party of Senegal. The Socialist Party is a full member of the Socialist International.

The Socialist Party of Senegal was first created in 1958 right. The Party was founded by Leopold Sedar Senghor and it was in power under him politically from 1960 to 1980; the Socialist Party of Senegal was known as the Senegalese Progressive Union. Senghor had founded the Senegalese Democratic Bloc in 1948 and in 1958 it merged with another political party to become the UPS; the UPS became the ruling party of Senegal in 1960. The UPS was known as the Socialist Party of Senegal starting in 1976; when Senegal gained independence in 1960, Senghor was unanimously elected president to Senegal's new republic system. He was elected president on September 5, 1960, he had served in the French Constituent Assembly since 1945, therefore he had political experience when elected president. In the early 1960s, there was a personal and political rivalry between President Senghor and Prime Minister Mamadoua Dia. In 1962, there was a coup attempt. Dia was sent to prison as a result. A new constitution took effect in 1963 and Senegal's parliamentary system became a centralized presidential system.

In 1963 Senghor ran unopposed for president and won. By 1966, Senegal was considered a one-party state; this occurred because Senghor was running unopposed as president and the economic stability of Senegal began to fade. Senegal relied on peanut-farming and this source of economic stability was in decline. Single-party rule prevented an overwhelming economic crisis and ensured social stability in Senegal, appealing to people in the country. However, in the 1990s, Senegal's status as a democracy was called into question because it seemed impossible to remove the Socialist Party of Senegal from office. There was no legal political opposition to the Socialist Party of Senegal until 1974, when Abdoulaye Wade obtained legal permission from Senghor to create a new party, he created the Senegalese Democratic Party. Starting in 1978, Wade's party began to start winning seats in the National Assembly; this was the beginning of Senegal moving from an single-party system into a more competitive system. Leopold Sedar Senghor voluntarily resigned from position of president in 1980 and Abdou Diouf came into power as Senghor's hand-picked successor.

Senghor became the first African head of state to voluntarily retire. In the 2000 presidential election, the Socialist Party of Senegal was defeated and was no longer the ruling party for the first time in 40 years. Abdou Diouf, the 19-year incumbent of the Socialist Party, was defeated by Abdoulaye Wade; the removal of Diouf from office by an election broke the political monopoly the Socialist Party had on Senegal and helped establish Senegal as one of the African countries with the most advanced democracies. Senegal became one of the first African countries to remove the head of government by voting instead of a coup or violent measures. Wade was the candidate from the Senegalese Democratic Party and had been the leader of the political opposition against the Socialist Party for about 25 years. In the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections, Ousmane Tanor Dieng unsuccessfully ran. In 2007, the Socialist Party participated in a boycott of the June 2007 parliamentary elections and has not held seats in the National Assembly since.

Senegal is a republic with a presidency. The president is elected every 7 years by the adult Senegalese population; the March 2000 presidential election ended 40 years of dominance by the Socialist Party of Senegal. In the 2000 presidential election, the party's candidate, incumbent president Abdou Diouf, was defeated by the leader of the Senegalese Democratic Party, Abdoulaye Wade, in a second round of voting. Diouf received the most votes, 41.3%, in the first round, but in the second round he received only 41.51% against Wade. Ousmane Tanor Dieng was the party's candidate in the February 2007 presidential election, he was the candidate in the 2012 presidential election and lost again. In the 2019 Senegalese presidential election a candidate did not run; the parliament in Senegal is unicameral and is made up of the National Assembly, which has 165 seats. There has been periods where Senegal has had a Senate, but it was abolished by a constitutional referendum in 2001 and abolished a second time in 2012.

Elections are held every 5 years. The Socialist Party of Senegal has held seats in the National As

Puddefjorden anglicized as Pudde Fjord, is an inlet or fjord in the central part of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. An arm off of the main Byfjorden, the Puddefjorden is 3.5 kilometres long and stretches from the tip of the Nordnes peninsula to the Solheimsviken bay at the entrance to the Store Lungegårdsvannet bay. The fjord is 1.2 kilometres at its widest, between Nordnes and the inner part of the borough of Laksevåg. The innermost part of the fjord, known as Damsgårdssundet, is much narrower, scarcely 100 metres wide at its narrowest; the fjord is located next to some of Bergen's most important industrial areas, has played a significant part in the city's development and industrialisation. Despite being situated in the central part of the present-day city of Bergen, the Puddefjorden did not play a major role in the city's early history; the fjord experiences strong currents and has numerous small islets, rendering boat passage dangerous. Furthermore, its innermost parts used to freeze over during winters.

Because of that, the nearby Vågen bay was the preferred entrance to the city for nearly all water-craft traffic. The ice and strong current caused the kings of Alrekstad to avoid using Puddefjorden; the ice stopped an invasion attempt by Kristoffer Throndsen in 1536, when Puddefjorden went all the way in to what is now known as Lille Lungegårdsvann. Puddefjorden was not considered a part of the city of Bergen, but rather a nearby area; this view held until the mid-1800s. The fjord's northeastern side belonged to the city and scattered habitations appeared there at the end of the 17th century becoming the neighbourhoods of Møhlenpris and Nøstet; the original Puddefjorden was both longer and broader than it is today, but after extensive industrialisation of the nearby areas in the 19th century, the fjord's form was altered. The Puddefjord was wrapped around the city, ending only a few blocks away from Vågen. Following the final filling of the strait between Lille Lungegårdsvannet and Store Lungegårdsvannet in 1926, the fjord now stops in the Store Lungegårdsvannet bay.

Changes to the fjord over the centuries The first bridge across Puddefjorden was the first Nygård Bridge, opened in 1851. Since that time, three additional bridges have been built across the fjord; the former three cross the entrance to Store Lungegårdsvann, while the fourth spans the fjord between Møhlenpris and Gyldenpris. Industry has had an environmental effect on the fjord, its sediment has become polluted with PCB and mercury. There has never been a thorough record of the poisons released into Puddefjorden, both smaller businesses and locals have used Store Lungegårdsvann as a disposal area; as a result, Puddefjorden is now divided into five sub-areas and the rinsing process is estimated to cost around 10 million kr. List of Norwegian fjords