what okapis eat

Photo: Okapi Conservation Project

Okapis have long purple tongues. They use their long tongues to eat leaves off of tall trees. When they drink water, they spread their legs and bend down their necks. The food they eat is too hard for their teeth, so they swallow their food whole, then later they regurgitate it back up, and eat the cud because the cud is softer on their teeth.

Okapis eat tree leaves, buds, grasses, ferns, fruits, hawthorn leaf, and fungi. Okapis are herbivores.