Man Proves Music is Universal Language By Charming Rare Okapi with Acoustic Cover of Radiohead Hit

Diana Logan

November 22, 2024 at 2:55 PM

It's a busy world out there, and it's hard to take a moment to appreciate the wonder of the natural world. But just today, just for now, I urge you to stop and enjoy this video of a man sitting in a barn and singing a pop song to a most unusual animal. It's a rare, unbelievable moment of connection between two living creatures that will really make you think.

Plumes is a French-speaking singer known for performing for and alongside animals, and in this clip, he truly captures the essence of what he does, when he charms the usually shy and inhibited okapi into coming closer and checking out his music.

Related: Disney's New Baby Okapi Has the Most Meaningful Name

Music Hath Charms

The song he has chosen for this performance is Radiohead's 1990s classic hit "Creep" -- a song that has long defined the famous band, despite being very different from most of their discography and having embroiled them in a plagiarism case.

The song, about a man who thinks himself worthless and strange in the presence of a woman he finds special and beautiful might be an especially apt choice to sing for such a rare and extraordinary animal, one who was rarely seen outside of its native forests and was actually once considered to be a mythological creature.

Now, okapis can be found in zoos all over the world, but it doesn't make them any less special, and watching this one respond to the gentle music is truly a delight to see. The juxtaposition of this animal and this song brings up questions of what we as humans are doing when we bring these creatures into zoos to gawk at them.

All About The Elusive Okapi

Okapi may look like a type of deer or zebra, but actually, they are most closely related to giraffes. They are an endangered species who only make their home in the mountain forests of the Congo region, and were only discovered by the western world in the early twentieth century. For years, European explorers were fascinated by legends of the "African unicorn" and it turns out this shy, solitary creature was the animal that they had heard of. Other animals Okapi were mistaken for included horses and donkeys, but in the end, taxonomists agreed they are best described as forest giraffes.

Like giraffes, male okapi have bony, skin-and-fur-covered protuberances on their heads called ossicles that are used for defense and fighting during mating season. They are herbivores with very long tongues they use to reach vegetation. They are dark brown or red in coloration, with dramatically striped white legs and backsides that help them camouflage in deep forests.

Female Okapi are actually larger than the males. In the wild, they live extremely solitary lives in their remote forests, with females staying in one territory and males migrating from zone to zone. Okapi pregnancies can last nearly a year and a half, and when the female does give birth, she will hide the calf in one location while foraging and only visit infrequently to nurse.

Okapi are considered endangered due to habitat loss and illegal hunting for their skins as well as "bushmeat."

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