As the zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans has noted, it reminded one of those mythical creatures comprised of the body parts of various animals. Few Europeans believed it existed, but Johnston's persistence paid off. In the early part of this century, the animal finally became known to science as the okapi. To bring to light a huge, unknown mammal in this century astounded the world. Those who disbelieve in the Loch Ness monster and other fabulous creatures would do well to remember the okapi, as well as certain points surrounding its discovery.
Legends often hold some truth.
In the Middle Ages, ivory horns supposedly taken from unicorns were peddled to European royalty for 20 times their weight in gold. Few if any collectors knew that these long, spiraled tusks came from an actual animal, the narwhal, a cetacean that lives in the Arctic. While traveling across Arabia on his return from China in 1294, Marco Polo heard of a bird on Madagascar that was so large it could carry elephants aloft in its talons. Until they went extinct about 1,000 years ago, Madagascar's elephant birds were the largest birds that ever lived. Though they couldn't lift an elephant, they did stand ten feet tall and weigh close to half a ton.