Word: okapi
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...this "living fossil" creates an evolutionary mystery. In logic its kind should have disappeared when the seas began to be thronged with more modern, more efficient rivals. A plausible theory is that the Coelacanths retreated to the deeps where competition was not severe, and persisted there as the archaic okapi survived in the dense Congo forests, as the primitive duck-billed platypus in benign Australia. If so, some whim or freak of circumstance brought this particular Coelacanth up from the deeps to the coastal water of South Africa. And the possibility remains that other "living fossils" may lurk...
Ugliest animal in The Bronx, according to Messrs. Ditmars & Bridges, is Clarence, the wart hog, whose keeper stoutly defends him as "the nicest animal in the zoo." Rarest animal is the new okapi (TIME, Aug. 10). Now that Dr. Ditmars has it, what he wants most is an Australian earth worm twelve feet long...
...conclusion of the World War the famed Antwerp zoo was sadly depleted. New York's comradely N. Y. Zoological Park shipped to Antwerp 325 birds and animals. Thus, when Dr. William Reid Blair, genial director of the Zoological Park, made a bid for the Buta okapi, the Belgian Government saw fit to repay past kindness by giving him to Dr. Blair at a price far below that offered. But the okapi did not immediately leave Buta. In view of the indifferent success a few zoos have had in keeping them, Dr. Blair decided to let his okapi become accustomed...
...okapi was a rare find. His species lives only in the Ituri Forest and was unknown to Europe until 1900. That year Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, British explorer, identified the okapi as closely related to the giraffe, but of a lower order. It has shorter neck and legs, topped by an antelope head and large, furry ears. It reaches a height of five feet at the shoulder. Distinctive are its deep red-brown color, its white-striped legs and hind quarters. The Buta okapi was doubly valuable because he was so fine a specimen. Last week he participated...
...Antwerp Dr. Blair was waiting. He directed the transshipment of his okapi (named, by now, Congo) to a U. S.-bound vessel. During the ten-day voyage, Congo was a source of continual delight. Dr. Blair observed with satisfaction that his tongue was so long (14 in.) that he used it to wash out his ears and flick flies from his withers. Congo immediately took to Dr. Blair, who three times a day fed him bananas, cabbages, carrots, sweet potatoes, condensed milk. Except for three rough days, Congo took his food with relish. Normally okapis are browsers. They eat tender...