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"The Blue Giraffe" is a short story by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in the August, 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

A little known wildlife refuge in Africa is sporting a disturbing number of mutations. The hero goes into the refuge, where he sees, among other things, a blue giraffe, a two-headed rhinoceros, and an elephant with 2 trunks. He rescues a woman from a rhino attack, only to find that she is half human, half baboon. She takes him to her village, where her people insist that he marry her. From their stories, he surmises that a scientist had brought a mutation machine into the refuge, which somehow got left on even after the scientist died, and that is how the mutations continue to occur. The hero escapes the baboon village, finds the machine and turns it off.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939).