An okapi in Dublin, I presume

IN 1855 David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, became the first European to set eyes on Tokalaya Tunya, the ‘thundering smoke’.

He renamed it Victoria Falls. Some years later, while searching for the source of the Nile, he disappeared. His fate became the subject of much speculation and the New York Herald sent Henry Morton Stanley, an adventurer, to Africa to find him. By the shores of Lake Tanganyika on Nov 10, 1871, Stanley came upon the lost explorer and uttered the famous line; ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’.

In the journal of his adventures, Stanley mentions a strange kind of ‘donkey’, living in the forest. It was thought unlikely at the time, that a large animal could have gone unnoticed by western explorers and zoologists doubted its existence. Then Harry Johnston, British governor of Uganda, was shown strange hoof-marks which local people claimed were made by a mysterious creature called the ‘okapi’. Johnston went on to discover bits of striped skin and bones, including a skull. Although he never saw a live one, he was able to work out what the animal looked like and prepare a scientific description of it.