The okapi was scientifically described for the first time in 1901. Although local communities in the Congo knew the animal, European scientists initially struggled to identify it from incomplete reports and specimens.
The okapi lives in the dense forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its dark body helps it blend into shadowed vegetation, while horizontal stripes on its hindquarters and legs resemble those of a zebra. Those stripes are not evidence that the okapi is a zebra relative; the okapi is the closest living relative of the giraffe.
Explorers and officials first supplied misleading information about a supposed forest zebra. Later investigations, including work associated with British administrator and explorer Harry Johnston, helped establish that the animal was a distinct species. Zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater formally described it in 1901.
The okapi’s giraffe relationship is easier to see in its anatomy than in its appearance. It has a long, flexible tongue and small horn-like ossicones in males, features linking it to giraffids rather than equids.