The Johnstonian Jaunt for a Cryptic Creature

n                          Sir Henry ‘Harry’ HamiltonnJohnston was one of those remarkable Victorian explorers who ‘discovered’nAfrica (which was undoubtedly quite a revelation to those people already livingnthere) in the latter parts of the nineteenth century. In 1882-83, Harry visitednHenry Morton Stanley at Stanley Pool on the River Congo, and during his staynStanley told him about a strange, gigantic, striped pig of six feet in length he hadnglimpsed in the jungle. Later, on reading Stanley’s In Darkest Africa,nHarry’s eye was drawn to a single sentence in Appendix B, which read, 

nandnthis reminded him of their earlier conversation. Harry decided he would, ifnpossible, investigate this odd creature. 

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n In 1899, he was in Uganda, acting as anspecial commissioner of the British government, when he heard tales of a Germannadventurer who intended to ‘recruit’ some of the local pygmies to exhibit atnthe 1900 Paris Exhibition (the so-called ‘Human Zoo’ was a popular feature ofnthese shows at the time). Harry sent word to various local commandants to keepna lookout for the German and to apprehend him, which was eventually done. Thenremaining pygmies with him were freed and he was fined for kidnapping them, andnseven of them were sent to Entebbe, where Harry questioned them about thenstrange creature. They told him tales of a horse-like animal, like a zebra butnwith three toes, which was hunted and caught in pits. He accompanied them backnto their homes to ensure that they were properly repatriated, and from there henmade an expedition into the forest, guided by the locals, determined to solventhe mystery. In an isolated village he came across some local soldiers who werenwearing bandoliers made from the striped hide of an unknown animal. He boughtnthese from them, determined to prove he had found at least some slight evidencenof a new species, even if it was only a form of forest zebra. 

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nIn 1901, whilstnat Ravine Station, his Lieutenant Meura sent him, via a Swedish officer in thenBelgian service, Karl Eriksson, the complete skin (minus the feet) and twonskulls of this elusive beast. Harry examined the skulls closely and determinednfrom the bi-lobed lower canines that they came from an animal closely relatednto the giraffe, and duly sent the specimens to the Natural History Museum innLondon, on receipt of which Professor Sir E Ray Lankester and Dr PhillipnSclater gave it the name Okapia johnstoni in his honour. 

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nThe okapincaused quite a stir in zoological circles; one professor wrote an angry letternto a London journal declaring that the okapi’s existence was nothing innimportance when compared to the discovery of a death-dealing microbe, annutritive fish or a new fossil bird. One American gentleman complained in Notesnand Queries (Aug 1903) that the word ‘Okapi’ did not appear in the OxfordnEnglish Dictionary in spite of it being “… a name which appeared innalmost every periodical in 1901 or thereabouts,” to which the OED’sneditor John Murray waspishly replied that the word was unknown prior to 1901,nand so would therefore appear in the supplement. 

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nLankester started to produce anmonograph on the okapi but the text took far longer than was expected and asnthe lithographic plates had already been made, these were published as an Atlasnin 1910. Soon, other expeditions departed for the Congo looking for othernexamples, including one led by Walter Doggett, Johnston’s former naturalist, anreport of which appeared in The Ibis 1903. 

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nAs late as 1908, A F R Wollaston, innFrom Ruwenzori to Congo, wrote “…it seems very doubtful whether any Europeannhas yet seen, much less shot, an okapi in the wild state,” adding that anCongolese official had told him that he had shot three okapi, although hisndetailed description of the magnificent horns of these animals negates hisnclaim as okapi do not have large horns (he had probably shot bongos, a hornednantelope with a striped rump). Like giraffes, okapi are ruminants, with a long,nblue-black prehensile tongue (long enough that they can lick their own ears –ninside and out – and their eyes), their body shape is similar to the giraffe,nbroad and strongly muscled. They are an attractive dark chocolate-brown colour,nwith creamy stripes on the rump and legs, and the head is the same creamncolour, with small horns in the male. The female, unusually for mammals, isnlarger than the male. 

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nThe okapi has been called a ‘living fossil’ as it is annearly member of the giraffe family, related even more closely than the giraffento palaetragines, creatures that lived over 15 million years ago in Africa. Itnis thought that some palaetragines lived on the savannah, where they developednthe long necks of the giraffe, whereas others evolved into the okapi when theynmoved into forests and did not need a longer neck to reach foliage. 

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nThe okapinis something of a poster-child for cryptozoologists, as it is a perfect examplenof a large mammal that remained unknown to ‘science’ until the 20^thncentury, amply demonstrating that such a thing is possible and thereforenopening up the possibility that other ‘unknown’ animals might yet be found –nwhich is great, as I like (some) cryptozoology, although I do have to add thatnwe should be more concerned about the species (known and unknown) that arenbeing driven into extinction on a daily basis, rather than speculating aboutnwhat might, hypothetically, still be out there.

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