Fact Check: CGI clip of an adorable giraffe shared as real

A video of an adorable giraffe apparently posing for the camera is viral on social media with users claiming it be real. An X user shared the video with the caption ‘Giraffe posing for the camera’.

The video shared by other X users can be seen here, here and here.

In the viral video, you can see a herd of giraffes passing through a fenced passage while one of them notices the CCTV camera above and decides to throw some goofy expressions to show his astonishment. The video is now viral on social media as real.

Does the video show a real giraffe? Let's verify.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim false as the giraffe seen in the viral clip is from an animated short film.

Over searching through a reverse image search using the keyframes from the video, we found the original and extended version of the viral video on a Vimeo titled 5 metres 80 (Extract) uploaded a decade back on January 31, 2013.

The description of the video states, 'Short film by Nicolas Deveaux / 2012. Produced in Stereoscopic-3D by Cube Creative Productions and Orange, with the support of Arte, Ville de Paris and CNC.’

We further found the same video published on YouTube as well. The video was uploaded with title, ‘5 Mètres 80 - Élégance - Court métrage d'animation par Nicolas Deveaux - France - CGI 3D’. The video started with the name of the short film 5 Metres 80. Here, the viral clip can be seen at the timestamp of 0:47 seconds. The description of the video reads, ‘A herd of giraffes launches into a series of high-flying acrobatic dives in a deserted Olympic swimming pool.’

The same video could be seen here.

Moving forward we found the same video uploaded on the Vimeo account of the National Wildlife Federation that writes, ‘An excerpt from the award-winning short animation film "5 Metres 80", produced by Cube Creative & directed by Nicholas Deveaux. This video is a computer-generated animation and no real animals were used in its creation. Giraffes cannot perform these types of tricks and should remain untamed in their natural habitat.’

NewsMeter findings suggest that the viral video is created through CGI, not real.