Way back in 1901, Western scientists celebrated the sensational ‘discovery’ of a very strange, unicorn-like creature in the dark and humid depths of an African rainforest. Now, more than 125 years later, that famous animal is in trouble, and seemingly slipping off the global conservation radar.
Hands up if you’ve ever seen, or heard of, an okapi?
Older readers may remember this name from a well-known brand of penknives. But we’re talking about the original, living and breathing okapi – a creature once described as part donkey, part giraffe and with the stripey black-and-white hindquarters of a zebra.
It also has a very long blue-black tongue, huge ears and the ability to communicate via infrasound.
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The remarkable beauty and unique colouring of the okapi were among the striking features that caught the eye of those who were lucky enough to see one, with Italian explorer and filmmaker Attilio Gatti immediately bestowing the name “Beautiful” on the first okapi he helped to capture in a jungle pit trap in 1934.
But “Beautiful” fought valiantly against his captors, ultimately head-butting and kicking his way to freedom from a makeshift wooden stockade.
Later, during a visit to New York, Gatti remarked that the young okapi he saw in the Bronx Zoo had lost its “magnificence”. In his opinion, such captive animals “cannot give you even the faintest idea of the majestic appearance, the large size and fearful might which such animals normally attain in their own natural world”.
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