Okapi – Animal of the Week

Sure everybody knows about giraffes. We’ve seen them since we were three years old and had at least one or two of the things as stuffed animals growing up. But did you know there is one other animal placed in the same family as Giraffes? (The family is appropriately named Giraffidae). This animal of the week highlights the okapi (Okapia johnstoni), the much more obscure relative to the familiar giraffe.

Okapi’s are interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, they weren’t known to science until an expedition organized by British explorer Harry Johnston discovered them in 1901. (Like many things not know to science, local people knew of their existance.) That story alone is an interesting one. Reports started coming out of Africa in 1890 of the creature, and Johnson set out to discover them some ten years later. He sent back partial pieces of the animal’s hide to Britain, where scientists prematurely announced the discovery of a new species of zebra.

Ecology and Distribution

Okapi also make unique vocalizations to communicate with one another and rely on their incredible sense of hearing. They produce very low frequeny sounds, far below the level of human hearing, known as infrasound. Because they live in dense habitat, these vocalizations can travel long distances. They also can avoid detection from their main predator the leopard, which has hearing that is well developed for high frequencies (like other big cats). Okapis are not unique in the ability to make noise at the infrasound level either. It was discovered later that Giraffes also have the same ability, as well as some other animals like elephants, hippos, and whales.

Okapi distribution

Okapi are found only in the Ituri Rainforest, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly called Zaire), in central Africa. They live in tropical forests at fairly high elevations, between 1,500 and 3,300 feet.

Okapi are nocturnal. By day, they stay in the impenatrable swamps and thickets. At night, they move up in elevation to drier, more open forests, where they feed on leaves from over 100 species of plants. By getting food from such a diverse array of plants, they help ensure they can find enough food.

Like giraffes, okapi have long, flexible, blue tongues (nearly 10 inches in length) that they can use to grasp leaves at the upper limit of their reach. In fact, an okapi’s tongue is so long that they can lick their eyes and even ears. In seeking these food resources, they are much like a giraffe (going after vegetation high in the trees).

Appearance

Their neck and body is dark brown, while their legs have black and white stripes. This coloration is believed to serve two purposes. In dense forests where sunlight and shade are mixed together, it breaks up the shape of the okapi giving it camouflage. It’s also believed that it may help young okapi keep up with their mothers as they travel through the forest.

Okapi are fairly large, at 8 feet long and 5 feet at the shoulder. They weigh between 450 and 650 pounds.

Like their giraffe relatives, okapi are hooved (they’re Artiodactyls) and have two bony horns on the skull. Though their necks are relatively long, they of course lack the extended neck of giraffes.

Conservation Status

Okapi are somewhat protected, though they do face challenges and threats to their survival. They live in a limited geographic area that has recently experienced political instability with civil wars. These wars make protection of okapi and their habitat much more difficult. They are occasionally hunted by poachers and their habitat, like tropical forests all over the world, suffers from human encroachment. Efforts have been taken for their conservation though. The Okapi Wildlife Reserve was setup by the government in 1992 to officially protect part of their habitat within the Ituri Rainforest.

Fossil Giraffids

Okapi are interesting because they are more similar to giraffids of the past. There are many species of giraffids that we know about from the fossil record, and okapi are essentially a short necked giraffid like those from the Miocene (5 to 24 million years before present).

Here’s a very brief (and technical) excerpt of girrafid evolution taken from a Talk Origins page on Artiodactyl evolution.

Giraffes: Branched off from the deer just after Eumeryx. The first giraffids were Climacoceras (very earliest Miocene) and then Canthumeryx (also very early Miocene), then Paleomeryx (early Miocene), then Palaeotragus (early Miocene) a short-necked giraffid complete with short skin-covered horns. From here the giraffe lineage goes through Samotherium (late Miocene), another short-necked giraffe, and then split into Okapia (one species is still alive, the okapi, essentially a living Miocene short-necked giraffe), and Giraffa (Pliocene), the modern long-necked giraffe.

Final Fun Facts

• Okapi can sleep for 5 minutes in a 24 hour period and remain alert. (I’m sure just a few college students are jealous of that!)
• The International Society for Cryptozoology, an organization that documents and evaluates evidence of animals reported but not confirmed to exist, uses the okapi for it’s mascot.

Sources

• Wikipedi – general okapi information
• American Museum of Natural History – on the okapi’s discovery
• PBS Nature – article on low frequency sounds produced by giraffes (and okapi)
• Brookfield Zoo – overview of okapi
• Talk Origins – information on Artiodactyl evolution