The Okapi

Habitat

Okapi live in the dense rainforests, characterized by high precipitation and a closed canopy. Their striped coat allows them to blend in with the light shafts produced as the sun pierces through the canopy, and their oily, velvety fur helps to repel water. Due to their elusive nature and the difficult terrain of their home, the okapi population is difficult to census. It is estimated that 3,000-3,500 okapi live in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (OWR), with their total range-wide population estimated at 10-15,000 animals (based on a 2013 workshop). Due to the insecurity throughout its range, no range-wide population surveys have been conducted since 2013.

Diet

Primarily a diurnal species, they feed in the mornings and evenings consuming leaves of over one hundred known species of plants along with occasional fruit and fungi they find on the ground. Their long (up to 18in/46cm), dark blue prehensile tongues help strip leaves from branches and groom themselves. Okapi can consume toxic leaves, fruits, and fungi, but they also consume charcoal and clay which help absorb the toxins and provide them additional minerals for their diet. Just like their giraffe cousins, they must splay their legs to drink.

Behavior

Okapi are generally solitary, typically only found in pairs when a mother is with her calf, or two adults are mating. A sexually dimorphic species – okapi females are typically larger than males, while males have ossicones (small horn-like protrusions covered in skin and fur), and females do not.

Okapi have scent glands on each foot that leave a sticky tar-like residue wherever they walk to mark their territory. Female okapi have relatively small territories, up to 5 square kilometers, while males will patrol up to 12 square kilometers.

Okapi’s large ears can move independently, so they can stay alert from all angles. This acute hearing is imperative for discerning danger from great distances. They also use their incredible sense of smell to locate other animals or humans which may be threat. Okapi speak in their own secret language, too. By emitting subsonic sounds (infrasound), okapi are capable of communicating over long distances using sounds that humans and leopards cannot hear or detect (unless we’re using special equipment!). Female okapi locate their calves when they are hiding and “call” them out to nurse, males listen for females that maybe in estrus and search them out as they signal their location.

Okapi give birth to one calf per pregnancy. Although on extremely rare occasions, twins have been observed. Newborns can stand almost immediately after birth, however to avoid predation, calves will stay in a “nest” for the first eight to twelve weeks of their life and can go up to 60 days before defecating after they are born, evolutionary strategies believed to avoid leaving a scent leopards can detect. Calves look like adults but have a short fringe of hair along their backs. Mother okapi double their intake of leaves when nursing, producing a milk that is high in fat helping the calf triple in weight within 2 months. The calves grow quickly and start traveling with their mother around 2-3 months of age, this is when they are vulnerable to predation. The young okapi reaches adult size around two years of age.

Additional Information

Okapi were originally (and incorrectly) thought to be close relatives of the zebra, due to their striped coat. It was later realized they are the only living relatives of the giraffe. Much like our own fingerprints, each okapi has a unique stripe pattern. Calves are thought to identify and follow their mother using her stripes. The name ‘okapi’ is derived from the name given to it by the Lese tribes local to the area of its discovery. They called it o’api, which is a compound of two Lese words, oka, a verb meaning to cut, and kpi, a noun referring to the design made on arrows by wrapping the arrow with bark so as to leave stripes when scorched by fire. The stripes on the legs of the okapi resemble these stripes on the arrow shafts.