Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1901 — Helladotherium Redivivus. [ARTICLE]

Helladotherium Redivivus.

■ Harry Johnston has discovered in the Semliki forests a mammal which, in its living form,, is entirely new to science, says the London Times. It is the size of an ox, and is distinctly related to the giraffe. This remarkable creature, in fact, appears, so far as a cursory examination of its skin and skull may guide us, to be a living representative of the Helladotherium, a creature found in the fossil state in Greece and Asia Minor and supposed to be extinct. The Helladotherium \yas thought to be a relation of the giraffe, smaller in size, with shorter neck, and without any marked development of those horn cores which in the giraffe represent the pedicles from which, far back in the history of the genus, a kind of antler formerly sprang. Sir Harry Johnston has at last secured, through the kindness of the Belgian authorities-at the“ frontier post of Fort Mbeni, a skin and two skulls of this animal, which is now shown to be not at all a horse, but a cloven-hoofed ruminant of extraordinary coloration and appearance, which seemingly is either of the extinct genus Helladotherium, or is some closely allied creature belonging to that somewhat vaguely defined group of which the giraffe is an exemplar.