The zebra can be quickly confused with a horse or donkey, as it is closely related to the two horse species. The zebra is an incredibly breathtaking animal to experience, which with its beautiful white and black stripes completely takes your breath away. Especially because zebras are in huge flocks of over 100,000 zebras, it is a sight you will soon forget when.
Facts about the zebra
| Location: | Africa, in the south and east. |
| Life expectancy: | 25 to 30 years |
| Weight: | 250 kilos |
| Size: | 240 cm long and 125 cm high |
| Food: | Herbivorous, grasses |
| Quantity: | Over 700,000 |
| Fun fact: | The zebra can mate with both horses and donkeys. |
Characteristics
The first thing you notice about the zebra is its white stripe pattern on its otherwise black fur / skin. Like the giraffe, the zebra’s pattern is completely unique and comparable to human fingerprints. This means that zebras recognize each other in their pattern, which is why a youngster can designate its mother from other zebras. To humans, zebras are alike, but to zebras, stripes are its identity. The stripes are not just for the sake of appearance, the stripes of all zebras confuse their enemies. The stripes make it difficult for predators to distinguish the different zebras from each other, and thus it is difficult to observe their prey. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG for abbreviations related to Zebra.
Food
The zebra is a herbivore, and the food therefore consists of vegetarian food. The food consists of leaves, grass, twigs, buds on trees and a number of herbs. In fact, the zebra spends much of its day, both finding its food and eating its food. The zebra is said to spend about 14 to 20 hours every single day eating. In addition, the zebra is highly dependent on having water close to its habitat. They are simply to survive. The zebras are so much grassier, which means that most of their food consists of grass. They like to wait for new grass to grow so they can eat it.
Pregnancy
The zebra is already sexually mature after only 1 to 2 years and can then mate. The gestation of the zebra is present for 12 months. The zebra gets one foal when it gives birth. The birth weight of the foal is about 30 kilos and here the foal sucks for a year with its mother. When the filly is around 2 years old, it leaves its herd to become a member of another herd. Unlike the filly, the colt only leaves its mother when they are 4 years old. The stallion then forms a bachelor group together with other young stallions.
Herds
Zebras are without a doubt a herd animal and are at their best with other zebras. The herd typically consists of a large number of small groups or harems of about 16 zebras, where there are both mares and foals, and with only one stallion in the lead. The stallion is incredibly important in the herd, as its task is to protect the herd from any enemies such as lions and hyenas. In addition, the stallion’s task in the herd is to kidnap young, beautiful mares from the other groups. The stallion is also the father of all the foals in the group. A zebra family is often close to other families. Therefore, it can also look as if the zebra flock is huge. It is not uncommon to see over 100,000 zebras in the same area. The zebras protect each other. If a zebra or youngster is injured by a predator, the other zebras may well form a ring around the injured zebra,
Family
The zebra comes from the horse family, and is the only member with stripes. The horse family consists of 10 different species. The 10 different species are of animals such as horses, donkeys, half donkeys and zebras. When we talk about zebras, there are 3 species of zebras with about eight subspecies. The three different “main species” in the zebra family are the steppe zebra, the count’s zebra and the cape mountain zebra. The steppe zebra has 6 subspecies, with Grevy’s zebra having only 2 subspecies. Thus, the Cape mountain zebra is the absolute rarest of them all with only 700 individuals. All zebras live only in Africa, and here in particular in eastern and southern Africa.
Travelers’ questions about the zebra
Do zebra stripes have a function?
Yes, they have surprisingly enough. There has long been speculation as to what the function is with the zebra’s stripes. The stripes are basically not an optimal camouflage in relation to the savannah landscape, as they with their unique stripes create attention for the predators. Although they create attention with their stripes, they also confuse their enemies with their stripes. Their stripes visually confuse a predator when a herd of zebras is gathered. They do this because the predators have a hard time distinguishing the zebras from each other, and therefore have a hard time finding a prey.
Other theories include the Swedish-Hungarian research group, which believes that the stripes help to confuse blood-sucking flies, and therefore make it less attractive for the flies to suck blood from zebras than other solid-colored animals. Others believe the stripes are camouflaging for the zebra’s biggest enemies, including the lion. The lion is color blind and can therefore only see shades. The stripes can thus be confused with the shades of the grass, which makes the stripes act as camouflage for the zebra. There has also been talk that the stripes function as a kind of cooling system, like what you see in the giraffe. The black, warm stripes together with currents from the white, cool stripes create a cooling effect. However, there is no definitive proof of this. Finally, the stripes have the function that the zebras can recognize each other on the stripes,
Is the zebra black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?
That’s one of life’s big questions, and it’s long been what color zebra really is. The bow of the zebra is white just like its ears. It could therefore indicate that the zebra is white with black stripes, but let’s state it once and for all: the zebra is black with white stripes. Researchers have studied the development of a zebrafish while it was in the womb. Here the zebra developed black fur, and only after some time did the white color begin to appear. The zebra’s house is also black, which is why the zebra is black with white stripes.
Can the zebra be crossed with both the donkey and the horse?
Yes, the zebra can be crossed with both the horse and the donkey.
When zebras mate with horses or donkeys, it is called a ‘zebroid’. Zebras can thus be found in many different shades, as they can mate with both the horse and the donkey, but this rarely happens in nature. This type of crossbreeding takes place in most of the passages between a horse mare and a zebra stallion. The offspring can look quite funny, where for example only the head is striped, and not the rest of the body. A zebra and a donkey can also mate, their offspring are called ‘hinny’ or ‘donkra’. Here it is a zebra mare and a donkey stallion that are mating. When there is a cross between a zebra and a donkey or horse, the baby usually becomes sterile, which is why zebroids are therefore not very common.
