Greg Balestrieri, age 14, of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, for his question:
Where is the okapi found?
At the turn of the century, zoologists felt confident that at least all the mule sized mammals had been found. But they had failed to probe deeply into the mysterious jungles that border the great Congo River of Africa. Time after time, the little pygmy people reported that the strange okapi was hiding there in the shadowy thickets. And time after time the experts refused to believe. How wrong they were;
On August 3, 1937, North Americans got their first look at a real live okapi. The handsome mule sized mammal arrived from Africa and took up residence in the New York Zoological Park. For years he had been the topic of many a scholarly debate as to whether or not he existed. After all, it was very hard to believe that an animal of this size could have escaped notice until the 20th century.
When we speak of darkest Africa, surely we must mean the dense jungles by the edges of the Congo river. Here the tall trees crowd together and cast a canopy of shadow down into the steamy jungle. Below them, smaller trees tangled with leafy vines cast more shade and even the tropical sunbeams cannot pierce down to the sprawling underbrush.
Gaudy birds squawk and flutter among the higher trees and chattering monkeys romp among the boughs. But the creatures down on the ground live in perpetual shade. And one of these creatures of the gloomy darkness is the fabulous okapi. It is almost im¬possible for a person to hack his way through these dense jungles of the Congo. And even if he did, the noise of his coming could scare the okapi away before it was seen.
It took a lot of evidence to convince the world of science, but when at last a few specimens were brought out as the final positive proof, nobody was disappointed. He looks a lot like a mule though he has a longer neck and his back slopes down toward his rear end. He has a long horsy face with large eyes and a gentle expression. His stringy tail ends with a tuft and his head is crowned with a pair of mulish ears.
His shape is rather ordinary but his velvety coat is remarkable. It is, of course, designed to be worn in the deep dark jungle. But who would expect his background color to be a rich shade of deep purple? This is how most people describe it, though in certain lights it takes on a rich chocolate tone. His cheeks and chin are whitish and there are ripply white stripes around his slender legs and across his rump. He has soft mobile lips and a long mobile tongue to grasp his leafy food.
For awhile, it was thought that the okapi must be a long lost member of the horse family. Not so. His neck, his dainty hooves and other basic features qualify him for membership in the family Giraffidae. The handsome fellow is a smallish cousin of the skyscraper giraffes.