File:The game animals of Africa (1908) (14775264993).jpg

Identifier: gameanimalsofafr00lyde (find matches)
Title: The game animals of Africa
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Lydekker, Richard, 1849-1915
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting Big game animals
Publisher: London, R. Ward, limited
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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nt of the fore-leg may also be connected with the black fetlock-ring,or separated therefrom by a white band. The tail is shorter than inthe giraffe, with a smaller terminal tuft, which may be more or lesscompletely worn away. In stature the okapi may be compared tothe bongo antelope ; and, like all forest-animals, it apparently carriesits head and neck stretched forwards in a very similar manner. The nearest ally of the okapi appears to be the extinct Sainotheriuin(PalcBotragus) from the upper tertiary formation of the isle of Samosand Greece, in which the males were likewise horned and the femaleshornless. HelladotJiermvi, of the Grecian tertiary, was a much largeranimal, in which both sexes may have been hornless ; while Sivatheriwnand Bramatlierium were equally large ruminants from the correspondingformation of India. In the males of SivatJieriuin the head carriedtwo pairs of horns, of which the hind pair is large and branching,although probably clothed in life with skin. OKAPl 577
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u 378 GIRAFFE GROUP As regards its general characters, the skull of the okapi (fig,79) appears to be intermediate between that of the giraffe on theone hand and that of the extinct SaviotJierium on the other.It has, for instance, a greater development of air-cells in theintermediate layer than the latter, but much less than the former.Again, in Saniotherium the horns are situated immediately over theeye-sockets, in the okapi they are placed just behind the latter,while in giraffes they are partly on the parietal bones. In generalform the okapi is more like an antelope than a giraffe, the foreand hind cannon-bones, and consequently the entire limbs, beingof approximately equal length. From this it seems probable thatSamotheriuin and Ocapia indicate the giraffe-line ; while the apparentlyhornless HelladotJierium of the Grecian pliocene may occupy a some-what similar position in regard to the horned SivatJier-iiim of theIndian Siwalik strata. In 1902 Mr. A. Wiedemann announced in Orienta

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