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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NUM-ORC |
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OKAPI , the native name of an African ruminant mammal (Ocapia jahnstoni), belonging to the Giraffidae, or giraffe-family, but distinguished from giraffes by its shorter limbs and neck, the absence of horns in the females, and its very remarkable type of colouring. Its affinity with the giraffes is, however, clearly revealed by the structure of the skull and teeth, more especially the bilobed crown to the incisor-like lower canine teeth. At the shoulder the okapi stands about 5 ft. In colour the sides of the face are puce, and the neck and most of the body
spring of 19oi, is a native of the Semliki forest, in the district
Edward
Specimens in the museum at Tervueren near Brussels show that in fully adult males the horns are subtriangular and inclined somewhat backwards; each being capped with a small polished epiphysis, which projects through the skin investing the rest of flat horn. As regards its general characters, the skull of theokapi appears to be intermediate between that of the giraffe on the one hand and that of the extinct
Pliocene deposits of southern Europe on the other. It has, for instance, a greater development of air-cells in the diploe than in the latter, but much less than in the former. Again, in Palaeotragus the horns (present only in the male) are situated immediately over the eye-sockets, in Ocapia they are placed just behind the latter, while in Girafa they are partly. on the parietals. In general form, so far as can be judged from the disarticulated skeleton, the okapi was more like an antelope than a giraffe, the fore and hind cannon-bones, and consequently the entire limbs, being of approximately equal length. From this it seems probable that Palaeotragus and Ocapia indicate the ancestral type of the giraffe-line; while it has been further suggested that the apparently hornless Helladotherium of theFemale Okapi. Grecian Pliocene may occupy a somewhat similar position in regard to the horned Sivatherium of the Indian Siwaliks.For these and other allied extinct
Little is known with regard to the habits of the okapi. It appears, however, from the observations of Dr J. David
Edward
district
body
on the low forest underwood and the swamp-vegetation. The small size of the horns of the males is probably also an adaptation to life in thick underwood. In Dr David
opinion an okapi in its native forest could not be seen at a distance of more than twenty or twenty-five paces. At distances greater than this it is impossible to see anything clearly in these equatorial forests, and it is very difficult to do so even at this short distance. This suggests that the colouring of the okapi is of purely protective type.By the Arabianized emancipated slaves of the Albert Edward district the okapi is known as the kenge, 6-a-pi being the Pigmies' name for the creature. Dr David adds that Junker may undoubtedly claim to be the discoverer of the okapi, for, as stated on p. 299 of the third volume of the original
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