Shapi, the so-called living fossil, has been an exciting subject matter for me since it was first documented in Sikkim some seventy years back. I have been looking for information on Shapi for the last couple of years but with little success. Very little has been written about this rare animal that is regarded as older than deer, goat, and sheep. Considered a rare species and one of the most precious assets of Sikkim, this mammal was first discovered by Ernst Schäfer, a German doctor, on an expedition in 1938 in Fimphu, North Sikkim. I should not forget Margreth Paech from Germany, with whom I had an exchange of emails about the discovery of Shapi made by the German Expedition team led by Ernst Schaefer in 1938. She was generous enough to help me in my research by sending photographs of Shapi from the German Archives related to the Ernst Schäfer Expedition, which helped me take a glimpse of that historic discovery. I looked on the internet for information about Shapi. ...
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