Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

years earlier). At first thought to be a zebra because
of its distinctive stripes, the okapi was identified as
a short-necked cousin of the giraffe after Johnston
obtained some skulls. The first live specimen taken
out of Africa was delivered to the Antwerp Zoo in
1919. The animal stands just under 5 feet 6 inches
at the shoulder and has bold, black-and-white
markings on its rump and hind legs. An exceptionally
long, blue-black tongue allows it to pluck
and tear leaves and twigs. Now confined to the
dense Ituri Forest in the northeast Congo, the
okapi has enjoyed absolute protection since 1933.
The Okapi Wildlife Reserve (http://www.
unesco.org/whc/sites/718.htm) was created in
1992. One of the rock paintings in the Tassili
N’Ajjer Plateau in Algeria may represent an okapi;
difficult to date, the Tassili frescoes were produced
sometime between 6000 and 1000 B.C. Anexcellent
description and history is found in Susan Lyndaker
Lindsey, Mary Neel Green, and Cynthia L.
Bennett, The Okapi: Mysterious Animal of Congo-
Zaire (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999).
Pygmy hippopotamus. Hexaprotodon liberiensis.
Not as amphibious as Hippopotamus amphibius,
this hippo stands only 2 feet 6 inches high
at the shoulder. The head is smaller, and the eyes,
ears, and nostrils do not protrude as much as those
of the common hippopotamus. The feet leave a
distinctive, four-toed track. Controversy raged in
the nineteenth century over whether skulls of this
animal represented a new species or whether they
were merely juvenile or freak specimens of the
common hippo, even though a living animal was
displayed at the Dublin Zoo for a few weeks in
1870. Hans Schomburgk captured five others in
Liberia in 1913, leading to the pygmy hippo’s acceptance
as a distinct genus. The animals are restricted
to two areas: in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and
Côte d’Ivoire and between the Cross River and
Niger River deltas in Nigeria. Humans may have
hunted this species to extinction on Cyprus by
8000 B.C. A. H. Simmons, “Extinct Pygmy Hippopotamus
and Early Man in Cyprus,” Nature
333 (1988): 554–557.
Pygmy hog. Sus salvanius. The smallest pig
(with a total length of 2 feet and a shoulder height
of less than 1 foot), thought to have become extinct
by the 1960s. Rediscovered near Mangaldai,
Assam State, India, in 1971 by Dick Graves.
Queen of Sheba’s gazelle. Gazella bilkis. Described
in 1985 by Colin Groves and Douglas Lay
634 ANIMALS DISCOVERED SINCE 1900
from unusual skulls found in Yemen. Only known
from the high-altitude plains and hills around the
city of Ta’izz, Yemen. The animal is probably extinct
in the wild, but four of these beautiful
gazelles, collected in 1996, are held in a private
collection in Qatar.
Red goral. Naemorhedus baileyi. A bright red
goat-antelope found in the Yunnan Province of
China, Tibet, Assam, and Myanmar that was first
described by Reginald Pocock in 1914. In 1961,
R. W. Hayman thought some specimens were distinct
and named them N. cranbrooki, but these
have been considered conspecific since 1980.
Riwoche horse. A previously unsuspected
breed of wild horse was discovered in a remote valley
in northeastern Tibet in October 1995 by ethnologist
Michel Peissel. Just under 4 feet high at
the shoulder, the horse has apparently been isolated
from other breeds for many centuries. It has
a black stripe down its back, stripes on its back
legs, and a black mane. Michel Peissel, The Last
Barbarians: The Discovery of the Source of the
Mekong in Tibet (New York: Henry Holt, 1997).
Roosevelt’s muntjac. Muntiacus rooseveltorum.
Found in 1929 near Muang Lo, Laos, this species
was thought extinct until rediscovered in Lak Xao,
Laos, by George Schaller in 1995. It has a tuft of
orange hair between its antlers and a black chin.
Specimens were found in Thanh Hoa Province,
Vietnam, in 1998.
Saola. Pseudoryx nghetinhensis. Discovered in
May 1992 by John MacKinnon in the Vu Quang
Nature Reserve, Vietnam, this antelope-like ox has
long, recurved, spindle-shaped horns; a cinnamon
coat; large facial glands; and distinctive black-andwhite
markings on its face. Standing 3 feet tall at
the shoulder, the adult male is 4 feet 6 inches long
and weighs about 175 pounds, making it the
largest Asian mammal discovered since the
kouprey in 1937. The animal appears to be the
sole survivor of a family called the hemibovids, ancestral
to both oxen and antelope, that was
thought to have died out 4 million years ago. The
first living specimen was caught in June 1994. Its
popular name, sao la, means “spindle horn.” Also
known as the Vu Quang ox, it is found in Laos as
well. Vu Van Dung, John MacKinnon, et al., “A
New Species of Living Bovid from Vietnam,” Nature
363 (1993): 443–445.
Sumatran rhinoceros. Dicerorhinus sumatrensis.
The smallest rhinoceros, the Sumatran can be