#Giraffidae

[inatungulates]

Namibian giraffe Giraffa giraffa angolensis

Observed by guyrufray, CC BY-NC

[snototter]

A southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa) in Hluhluwe Imfolozi National Park, South Africa

by Nick Dean

[morgansram]

Taxidermy Okapi, 1901

[weepingwidar]

Fay Ku (Taiwanese, 1974) - Cornering Okapi (2008)

[fawnrats]

[Image description: A stylized digital drawing of an okapi sticking out his tongue to reach a leafy branch. End of image description.]

[tyrannoninja]

Okapi Sketch

This is an okapi I sketched in my sketchbook using a photo reference. I think the legs came out too short, but I am proud of having captured its movement. Okapi may look horse- or zebra-like, but these Central African animals are actually rainforest-adapted cousins of the giraffe.

[critter-captures]

Okapi (Okapia johnstoni) (male, female, young), family Giraffidae

Like the closely related giraffes, okapis have a long black tongue, used to pluck up food, and while grooming.

Also like giraffes, okapis have ossicones: horn-like structures on the head. Unlike giraffes, however, only male okapis have ossicones.

Safaripark Beekse Bergen, taken July 2024

[roygattero]

Shansitherium skeleton

vector illustration, done with mouse and keyboard

I'm taking commissions!

[geometryyaoi]

okapis are cute

[inatungulates]

Reticulated giraffe Giraffa reticulata

With red-billed oxpecker Buphagus erythrorhynchus

Observed by simben, CC BY-NC-ND

[snototter]

A giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) in the Okavengo Delta, Botswana

by flowcomm

[moistalabaster]

World Okapi Day!

(source)

[morgansram]

Okapi

[natturuval]

Líf, lén, ríki, fylking, flokkur, ættbálkur, ætt, tegund, undirtegund.

Hér skoðum við gíraffann og hvernig hann er skilgreindur í vísindalega líffræði flokkunarkerfinu.

Náðu þér í hrikalega skemmtilegt og fróðlegt spil á natturuval.is

[mutant-distraction]

Okapi

The okapi (/oʊˈkɑːpiː/; Okapia johnstoni), also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe and zebra giraffe, is an artiodactyl mammal that is endemic to the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. However, non-invasive genetic identification has suggested that a population has occurred south-west of the Congo River as well. It is the only species in the genus Okapia. Although the okapi has striped markings reminiscent of zebras, it is most closely related to the giraffe. The okapi and the giraffe are the only living members of the family Giraffidae.

The okapi stands about 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) tall at the shoulder and has a typical body length around 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in). Its weight ranges from 200 to 350 kg (440 to 770 lb). It has a long neck, and large, flexible ears. Its coat is a chocolate to reddish brown, much in contrast with the white horizontal stripes and rings on the legs, and white ankles. Male okapis have short, distinct horn-like protuberances on their heads called ossicones, less than 15 cm (5.9 in) in length. Females possess hair whorls, and ossicones are absent.

[o-craven-canto]

Nearly all the megafauna we associate with Africa today is immigrants. For the last 30 million years or so, its dominant mammalian families have been Bovidae (antelopes, gazelles, gnus, buffaloes), Giraffidae (giraffes), Hippopotamidae (hippos), Camelidae (dromedaries), Felidae (lions, leopards), Canidae (jackals, wild dogs), Hyaenidae (hyaenas), Rhinocerotidae (rhinos), Equidae (asses, zebras), Hystricidae (African porcupines)... nearly all came from outside. Mostly Asia; some from America! (The big exception is elephants).

For the first half of the age of Mammals, say 60 to 30 million years ago, Africa was an island-continent, cut off from the rest of the world by the warm currents of the Tethys Sea:

(Map by Chris Scotese; other pics from Wiki unless noted otherwise)

And, much like Australia in later times, it had developed its own unique fauna of endemic mammals, unknown in the rest of the world. It mostly formed a single clade, appropriately called Afrotheria, which had branched off other placentate mammals in the time of the last dinosaurs. And what were these Afrotheria?

Some of the smallest are still among us. Tenrecs and golden moles (order Afrosoricida), elephant shrews (order Macroscelidea), and hyraxes (order Hyracoidea), the African answer to hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and rabbits, respectively. They are not closely related to their Amero-Eurasian analogues, but they live in much the same way, and much in the same way they did when Africa was an island.

But some of them could grow quite large! Alas, Titanohyrax is known only from its jaws. Thankfully, the jaws and teeth of mammals are very distinctive and allow very precise identification.

And as for the true giants? Behold magnificent Arsinoitherium (order Embrithopoda), which was a rhino before there were rhinos. No close relation -- in fact, its horns were hollow cones of bone, whereas those of rhinos are made of solid keratin, like giant fingernails. (Sketch by Mauricio Anton, from this wonderful paper by him and Alan Turner).

Then there were the early Sirenians, the still only semi-aquatic ancestors of dugongs and manatees (and the first who broke containment: the proto-manatees Pezosiren and Prorastomus ended up in Jamaica when Africa was still an island, and they still had legs!)

And of course there were early Proboscideans, the grandparents and granduncles of elephants, like Moeritherium, who roamed Egypt when it was still a tropical swamp...

But no isolation lasts forever. Around 40 million years ago, Africa had drifted close enough to Eurasia for some animals to cross through the Tethys. As the seafloor was crushed between continents, the smoking islands that would become Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Iran were rising in between.

Among the first to cross were Primates, such as Afrotarsius, a sort of midway between tarsiers and true monkeys. They did well in the jungles on both sides of the Tethys, spawning macaques, vervets, langurs, baboons and eventually, in the woodlands around Lake Victoria, the first apes.

Another such groups were Rodents -- specifically the Phiomorpha subgroup, in which we find all sorts of distinctly African species such as Old World porcupines, cane rats, and naked mole rats. This is to say that Primates and Rodents did well for themselves after sneaking in.

But then, 30 million years or so, Africa crashed into Eurasia. All barriers to migration went away (well, they came and went with the sea level, but the point is, Africa was no longer super-Australia anymore). And then what we think of today as "African fauna" rushed in.

Here is what African macrofauna looked like at that point, as ungulates and carnivorans were starting to show up:

(H. B. S. Cooke, 1968)

The usual rule of thumb is that when two landmasses meet, the faunas of the smallest and/or most isolate landmass lose out. The later interchange between North and South America is a more famous example, but this is no exception.

The great Embrithopods vanished forever; other orders were relegated to small, humbler sizes. In came Bovidae, Giraffidae, Hippopotamidae, Rhinocerotidae, Felidae, Canidae, Hyaenidae, all sharpened by competition on a larger scale in the great grasslands of Eurasia. In came Equidae and Camelidae, which had appeared in North American plains alongside pronghorns (where did you think llamas come from?), and had gone all the way through Bering and Asia.

And by later ages, you see it yourselves: elephants and apes actually do quite well, but Eurasian carnivorans and ungulates now rule the land.

To be fair, many groups of pre-invasion African fauna did more than just endure. In the Miocene epoch, soon after the great exchange, apes would be found throughout Eurasia from Spain to China, and perhaps some key part of our own evolution took place there. Elephants were even more widespread, getting as far as South America; manatees invaded warm seawaters all around the Equator. Rock hyraxes and African porcupines had some success in the Near East and southern Europe. But I don't think any of these transformed the Eurasian landscape on the same scale as the African landscape was.

And to be sure, the newcomers were impressive!

The wheel of ages turns and turns, caring little for who thrives and who falls -- but life as a whole, somehow, always falls on its feet.