Giraffidae

Okapi

• Giraffes ( Giraffa )
• Okapi ( Okapia )

The giraffe -like ( Giraffidae ) are a family of Artiodactyla, which includes two genera, each with a species: the giraffe and the okapi.

Features

Although not too similar at first glance, both share types but quite a number of common features, the long dark-colored tongue, the notched canines and covered with a skin horns. The tongue is very flexible and capable of grasping. The horns are present at birth. They each consist of a bone that grows together in the course of life with the skull. They grow throughout life, yet you are still no significant sizes.

Way of life

Both species feed mainly on leaves and have in order to achieve this better, formed a long neck, which at the living in the forests Okapi less the case than in the case of people living in open parkland with individual high trees or groups of trees giraffe. Also, the okapi is in his food less on leaves specialized as the giraffe.

History of development

Giraffe -like species were once a much richer group than it is today. Her first appearance was in the Miocene. The earliest giraffe -like deer were similar in shape and did not yet have the specializations listed above. Until the Pleistocene into giraffe -like were also common in Europe and Asia. The Sivatherium and his relatives were the now -extinct line of cattle Giraffes ( Sivatheriinae ), short-necked animals with the stature of buffalo, but shovel-like, fellumkleideten horns.