• s@piefed.worldEnglish
    14 hours

    First of all, okapis are basically built to go undetected in the rainforest. Their fur pattern and behaviors make them especially hard to spot. They also reside in a relatively small region in the wild.

    Secondly, the first European to even see a portion of an okapi was Harry Johnston (British) in 1901, and all he saw was some pelts. Some Belgian explorers acquired some okapi skulls and skins in the same year. Photographs of living okapis did not happen until the 1920s-1930s.

    The native Mangbetu people did indeed call it an “okapi”, but Europeans first heard it called an “atti” by the native Wambutti people.

    I’d be interested in finding out what the oldest documentation of okapis by the Congo natives would be, if the okapi did in fact elude even them up until ~150 years ago.

    • MacAnus@sh.itjust.works
      6 hours

      From the Wikipedia article:

      "Although the okapi was unknown to the Western world until the 20th century, it may have been depicted since the early fifth century BCE on the façade of the Apadana at Persepolis, a gift from the Ethiopian procession to the Achaemenid kingdom.

      For years, Europeans in Africa had heard of an animal that they came to call the African unicorn."

      Seems to suggest that though elusive, it was pretty well know in the region.

      Thanks for making me learn stuff.