Samotherium 2015 study found that "Samotherium" had a neck intermediate in length between the giraffe and the okapi, judging from examination of specimens of "S. major" from Greece. Samotherium Samotherium ("beast of Samos") is an extinct genus of Giraffidae from the Miocene and Pliocene of Eurasia and Africa. "Samotherium" had two ossicones on its head, and long legs. The ossicones usually pointed upward, and were curved backwards, with males having larger, more curved ossicones, though, in the Chinese species, "S. sinense", the straight ossicones point laterally, not upwards. The genus is closely related to "Shansitherium". According to biologist Richard Ellis and
The Blue Giraffe thought of as lesser beings–[such as] a tribe of mutated baboons in 'The Blue Giraffe' ("Astounding", Aug 1939) ... as being as decent, rational and civilized as most men manage to be, and maybe even more so." Jamie Todd Rubin, reviewing the issue of "Astounding" in which the story originally appeared, writes "[o]f all the stories in the issue, de Camp’s is the best written. There is no feeling of pulp writing or story-telling. It is a smooth tale that comes alive in your imagination so that you feel like you are right there with the characters on their journey.