An Okapi born in Chicago Zoo

Zoo trumpets birth of rare African okapi :

The Brookfield Zoo announced this week the birth of a baby okapi - an endangered African animal that looks as if it were put together by committee.

With a dark brown body and striped upper hind legs, the 1-month-old female looks a bit like a zebra, but claims closer ties to a giraffe. Her name, Sauda, means "dark beauty" in Swahili.

Not yet on public display, except through a video feed from her quiet nesting area with her mother, baby Sauda will make her debut in the zoo's African forest exhibit in the spring.

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The zoo is recording Sauda's movements so scientists can learn more about okapi behavior, Petric said. First discovered by Westerners in the animals' native Congo in the early 1900s, the secretive okapi, known to live only in a forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, still hold many mysteries for researchers.

Hat-tip: Russ Williams