376 GIRAFFE GROUP 



Museum) was received from Sir H. H. Johnston, upon the evidence of 

 which Sir E. Ray Lankester, on page 472 of the Zoological Society's 

 Proceedings for 1901, definitely pronounced the okapi to be allied to 

 the giraffe, and at the same time proposed for it the name Ocapia 

 ( = Okapid) jo/in stoni. This specimen, which is hornless, was subse- 

 quently proved to be a female by the arrival of skulls, skins, and 

 skeletons of the male, which is invariably horned. On the evidence of 

 some of these later specimens it has been suggested that there is more 

 than one species of okapi, and new names have been accordingly proposed, 

 to which, however, it will be unnecessary to refer on this occasion. 



The okapi, which is at once shown to be a near relative of the 

 giraffe by the structure of its teeth, represents a generic group of the 

 same family characterised by the males having a single pair of simple 

 skin-covered horns, terminating when fully adult in small caps of bare 

 bone, while the females are hornless. The neck and limbs are 

 relatively much shorter than in giraffes, the ears much broader, and 

 the type of colouring quite different ; these two latter features being 

 adaptations to a forest-life. In colour the sides of the face are puce, 

 and the neck and the greater part of the body purplish red or 

 maroon, but the sides of the buttocks and the upper portions of both 

 the fore and the hind limbs are transversely barred with black and 

 white, while their lower segments (shanks) are mainly white, with black 

 fetlock-rings, and in the front pair a vertical black stripe on the 

 anterior surface. Considerable individual variation occurs in the 

 striping of the buttocks ; and while in some specimens there is a large 

 white knee-cap, in others there is little or none. The stripe on the 

 front of the fore-leg may also be connected with the black fetlock-ring, 

 or separated therefrom by a white band. The tail is shorter than in 

 the giraffe, with a smaller terminal tuft, which may be more or less 

 completely worn away. In stature the okapi may be compared to 

 the bongo antelope ; and, like all forest-animals, it apparently carries 

 its head and neck stretched forwards in a very similar manner. 



The nearest ally of the okapi appears to be the extinct SamotJierium 

 (Palceotragus} from the upper tertiary formation of the isle of Samos 

 and Greece, in which the males were likewise horned and the females 

 hornless. Helladotherium, of the Grecian tertiary, was a much larger 

 animal, in which both sexes may have been hornless ; while Sivatherium 

 and Bramatlierium were equally large ruminants from the corresponding 

 formation of India. In the males of SivatJieriuni the head carried 

 two pairs of horns, of which the hind pair is large and branching, 

 although probably clothed in life with skin. 



