Meet the Houston Zoo’s adorable new addition — a baby Okapi

HOUSTON – Houston Zoo is welcoming a new bundle of joy this week, a new baby Okapi.

The calf, whose gender has not yet been identified, was delivered in a yard by 13-year-old mother, Sukari, at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon. About an hour after birth, the calf stood with help from its mother, according to Zoo officials.

The Houston Zoo says that okapis are known as “forest giraffes” and are usually solitary animals, first discovered in 1901. They are rare and are found in rainforests around Central Africa.

Houston Zoo is helping to conserve the solitary species by saving them from the wild by providing support and equipment for local staff at the Okapi Conservation Project located at the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Central Africa.

The next time you visit Houston Zoo you can recycle your old cellphones which contain a metal mined where Okapi live, reducing the demand for new materials to be mined, the Zoo said.