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The Okapi to me will always be the animal that nibbled Arthur Dent’s brother to death.
A simple “first described by x” while not entirely true is at least a step closer to intellectual honesty.
That or “first became known to white people” would be even more candid.
while not entirely true
Actually, that is entirely true; “describe” is a real word in taxonomy with exactly that meaning. If you describe e.g. a species, then you’ve formally introduced it to science.
However, for a casual audience when not expressly talking about taxonomy (where “describe” on its own could be mistaken for the non-taxonomic meaning), e.g. “first scientifically described by X” would arguably be the best phrasing.
France 24 is not a scientific publication - it’s directed at a casual audience to whom describe does not inherently mean describe taxonomifally. The language has to be more precise if its looking to be intellectually honest.
I liked “The animal was discovered by Western science […]”.
Can a thing not be discovered multiple times?
It’s called a clitoris, Kevin.
“Western scholars:”
No, “Western scholars” are not saying this; news outlet France 24 did, and clearly as an obvious, reader-friendly oversimplification of the formal 1901 taxonomic description of Okapia. No “Western scholar” thinks that a taxonomic description is inherently discovering it.
Writing it was “discovered less than 150 years ago” is way more than a reader-friendly oversimplification, and it absolutely is not obvious to someone with no expertise in this stuff. Without seeing this discussion, I for sure would’ve thought that they’re claiming nobody knew the animal even existed before that. And I don’t have the knowledge to even recognize that as a claim worth fact-checking, let alone correctly interpret that they meant something different. So yeah, not great journalism here.
That’s not discovery. That’s classification. Huge difference, it was already well known to exist, classification just describes what it is, puts it into a category, and create subcategories within the group.
People knew about gravity long before physicists did the mathematics requred to model it.
Or as a biology example, was the dog, cat, horse, sheep, or cow only discovered when they were classified by biologists in like, what? The 1700s?
That’s not discovery. That’s classification.
Literally how did you read my comment and think that I was saying that it’s discovery? Or if you’re talking about France 24: yeah, everyone here knows; hence “oversimplifying”.
But thanks for explaining basic taxonomy to me. I really needed it. (Yes, the 1700s.)
God forbid you expect supposed “journalists” working for a massive news outlet to use precise terms. If they can’t communicate a concept as simple as discovery vs classification of an animal accurately you expect them to communicate actual news accurately?
You’re very snippy
Well maybe getting “corrected” on something I already know and said by someone who knows the bare minimum about taxonomy is a little obnoxious.
I don’t really care to police my tone when the person I’m responding to can’t even be fucked to read what I wrote before jumping in and acting like they know better.
Nah man, you started snippy
For just no-frills explaining why the line in the OP made no sense? Should I have thrown in an “lol” or an “uwu” as a tone indicator so you didn’t read it in the least charitable way?
But if you actually want snippy: the line is utter bullshit. “Western scholars” is used as a weasel word, when taxonomists obviously know the difference between discovery and description; they receive specimens discovered by someone else literally all the time as part of their job. No taxonomist in 2026 (or “Western scholar”, whatever the fuck that means) would think the okapi was “discovered” in 1901 or even by 19th-century Europeans who wrote about it; to assume otherwise is anti-intellectualist “stupid science bitches”-level horseshit and reflects zero understanding of taxonomy as a field.
But otherwise, if “Western scholar” means “France 24 Twitter person”, then cool. Weird choice of phrasing, but it’s accurate.
Yeah see this is what I’m talking about, you would benefit from going on a walk or something
It looks like it was drawn from memory.
It looks like it took four project managers to design, and they only collaborated once a week for 20minutes on Teams meetings.
Reminds me of this college humor skit from 12 years ago
If you don’t write it down then it doesn’t count. The British guy wrote it down 150 years ago.
It is so easy to just discard the knowledge of other cultures, isn’t it?
Can’t believe it took until we invented writing to discover the sun exists.
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