Gene Jarvis: Okapi

Artist: Gene Jarvis
1921 - 1990
Nationality: American
Artwork Year: 1981
Image Size: 9.5 by 9 inches
Overall Size: 12.75 by 12.5 inches
Medium: Pen and Ink on Hot Press Illustration Board

For many years before the white man ever discovered the Okapi, forest dwelling Pygmies in the Belgian Congo told of purple-colored, horse-like animals with big ears and black and white striped hindquarters and legs. Until 1901, whne Ugandan Governor Sir Henry Johnston brought an Okapi skin to England, these stories were scoffed at by civilized man and were considered about as likely to be true as the tales of the Abominable Snowman and monstrous Marsupial Tigers. Even then, there were many skeptics who believed the animals were simply a strange variety of Zebra. However, the Royal Zoological Society in London declared the animals were definitely not Zebras, and that there was a startling resemblance to the extinct short-necked Giraffe, Helladotherium, which some scientists believed had lived more than ten million years ago in Europe and Asia. Zoologists named this unique relative of the Giraffe, Okapia johnstoni. The large animal, so unlike the Giraffe in appearance and nature, lives in equatorial forests eating leaves, branches and young tree shoots. Browsing in the recesses of the forests, they drift about in family parties, their long blue-black tongues gripping tree branches and stripping them bare of leaves in an instant. Very little is known about the life of these forest-type Giraffes in the wild, despite the fact that some have been sighted, for they are shy creatures and their coloring and patterns of stripes camouflage them well -- in captivity, they are shy and gentle.

This painting was originally published on the Fleetwood® First Day Cover for the German Democratic Republic stamp issued June 24, 1980.

Artwork Copyright © 1981 Unicover Corporation. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Images of the Artwork may be watermarked and/or digitally watermarked. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the copyright.

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