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Zebra (Chapman's)

What they look like

The Chapman's zebra is a medium subspecies of the zebra group. With some of the most famously patterned coats in the world, no two zebras ever have the same stripe pattern.

Animal facts

Zebras may have evolved stripes for social recognition or to confuse and dazzle predators such as lions. These sociable animals communicate using barks, neighs or squeals.

What they eat

Mostly grass, leaves, bark and buds

Habitat

Grassy plains

Where they live

South western Africa and Zimbabwe

Threats

Poached for their skins and sometimes bushmeat. Lions and African hunting dogs often prey on them.

Okapi

What they look like

The only living relative of the giraffe, the okapi also has a long prehensile tongue that it uses to dextrously grab branches and leaves. They have large upright ears and highly developed hearing allowing them to evade potential predators and to remain hidden. The fur is thick, velvety and oily. They are largely reddish brown with striped zebra-like front and hind quarters providing them with a natural camouflage in dense rainforest.

Animal facts

Shy and elusive animals, okapis were only discovered by western zoologists from ZSL (Zoological Society of London) in 1901.They were well known to the Congolese forest people before this time. Generally solitary animals, female okapis only make vocal sounds during their mating season. A new born okapi can stand within 30 minutes of birth and triples in size by two months old.

What they eat

Okapis can eat over 100 different types of plants including their leaves, bark and fruit.

Habitat

Dense rainforest

Where they live

Central and north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, central Africa

Threats

Although hidden deep in the forest, okapis are threatened by habitat loss and hunting, leading to a fall in numbers. Natural predators include leopards.

ZSL's conservation work with okapis

Because of its shy nature and the challenges of fieldwork in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, obtaining accurate and up to date information on the okapi has been a major conservation challenge. In 2010, ZSL started a collaborative effort to carry out the first range-wide conservation status review of this little-known but iconic species. This research led to the reassessment of the okapi as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and laid the foundations for the development of the first okapi conservation strategy, which outlines the conservation measures to be taken to ensure the persistence of this species in the future.

Lemur (Ring-tailed)

What they look like

The ring-tailed lemur has a distinctive large bushy black-and-white striped tail. They have white faces with black ringed features and fluffy white ears. Their coat is otherwise grey with a white underbelly.

Animal facts

There are many mysteries to the lemur species; here are a few our favourites: Despite their cat-like appearance, lemurs are actually part of the primate family. Primates are recognisable by their good binocular eyesight, developed brains and their flexible hands with opposable digits. However, although lemurs possess opposable thumbs their grasp is quite weak, which means eating large chucks of apple can be a challenge (#lemurproblems).

Lemurs come in all shapes and sizes, for example, the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur is the smallest primate in the world, weighing up to just 30 grams! The indri is the world's largest lemur and can reach almost a meter in height, leap over ten metres and is known locally as babakoto meaning 'man of the forest'.

Lemur is a Latin word meaning 'ghost' or 'spirit of the dead'. This name is derived from lemur's vocal behaviour. Their calls were so loud that early explorers in Madagascar thought spirits made the eerie shrieks coming from the forest canopy. The ring-tailed lemur's scientific name lemur catta translates as ghost cat. This may be because of their cat-like qualities such as walking on all fours, their propensity for grooming and their ability to pur

Ring-tailed lemurs are very social and live in troops of up to 30 individuals. They are highly communicative and have around 30 distinct types of calls including grunting, howling and meowing. They spend much of their time grooming each other with comb-like front teeth, this helps establish their tight-knit social bonds.

During mating season, male ring-tailed lemurs compete to be the smelliest.

They rub their tails with scent from glands on their wrists and stink fight by wafting the pungent odour towards their opponent and glaring at them. The fight ends with the least smelly male conceding and dashing away.

In lemur society, the females are in charge! They have the pick of the food and choose their mates.

What they eat

Plants, leaves, flowers, fruit, sap, bark and occasional insects.

Habitat

Dry open areas and forest.

Where they live

Lemurs are indigenous only to Madagascar and a few small surrounding areas, meaning any environmental damage puts most of the species in danger.

Threats

As the population of Madagascar grows, and with most of the Malagasy people relying on subsistence farming, the island's precious forests are diminishing as they are cleared for pastoral land stock, charcoal production and illegal logging.