The Okapi
For years, Europeans heard rumours of a strange striped animal deep in the Congo forest. Then it turned out to be real.
What was reported
In 1890, the explorer Henry Morton Stanley wrote that the people of the Ituri Forest knew a donkey-like animal that lived deep in the forest. European scientists had never seen it, and some joked it might be an 'African unicorn'.
Around 1900, the British official Harry Johnston obtained strips of striped skin and later a whole skin and skulls from Mbuti hunters and Congolese soldiers, and sent them to London.
Explanations offered
In 1901, the animal was described as a new species: the okapi, a forest relative of the giraffe with zebra-like stripes on its legs. The people of the Ituri had known it all along. It is now endangered, and a symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- When
- Described by science in 1901
- Where
- Ituri Forest, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Witnesses
- Mbuti people; explorer Harry Johnston
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.