Didn't know this was even possible.

[Fridays Child]

Just shown on CNN: an 11-month old zebra-horse hybrid in Schloss Holte, Germany.

[Maat]

1. I think that she (he?) is beautiful (n/t).

[Fridays Child]

2. It's a female and I agree.

[Merlot]

3. What is the point of this?

There is no reason to do this. This type of "designer" animal breeding which also has created "ligers" and many dog breeds does more harm than good to the gene pool.

[Fridays Child]

10. I'm not sure that it was intentional.

The parents were both residing at a wild animal park, and there was no suggestion that it was a purposeful breeding.

ETA that the article at the following link also suggests it was an accident: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=464723&in_page_id=1770

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. The problem with dog breeding is inbreeding.

I don't think this is a case of inbreeding.

:shrug:

[slampoet]

20. Actually ligers have happened in the wild and were reported even back in Marco Polo's time.

[EstimatedProphet]

28. Not really

Cross-species animals can't successfully breed, therefore there's no harm to the gene pool.

[ThomCat]

4. I wonder if that hybrid is sterile.

I can't imagine that he/she wouldn't be. Otherwise, horses and zebras wouldn't really be different species.

[Fridays Child]

8. The gist of the story is that the owners are looking for a mate for her.

Maybe they have some reason to believe that she's fertile or maybe they just want to find out.

[soothsayer]

25. Yep. Sterile.

[kestrel91316]

5. I'm not convinced. The pattern of color/white distribution is not

what you would expect in a paint(bicolored) horse. I'm thinking Photoshop.

on edit: I see they can be crossed. Not sure why one would do this, other than for publicity.......

[sneakythomas]

7. Or creative use of Miss Clairol.

That's how they got the horse the right color for "The Black Stallion"

[alphafemale]

9. I'm thinking paint.

But getting a Zebra do stand still for such a "make-up" job would be a trick.

They're pretty damn vicious.

[Sal Minella]

27. Hampshire hogs and my calico cat have white distribution around the forequarters like that.

Odd that three different species would exhibit this, eh?

[kestrel91316]

33. Stripes on the front legs comes with the tabby gene in cats.

And the back legs. And all over.

If we see a bicolor cat with big blotches of color, it's black and white. The tabby-and-white bicolors have a typical distribution pattern totally unlike this horse hybrid......

[thereismore]

6. There are tigons and ligers (lion-tiger hybrids). nt

[dipsydoodle]

12. And there are

pullovers and kangeroos hybrids too and they call them wooly jumpers.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Use The Google!

Horse-Zebra Hybrids

They're all Equids.

Possible? Common!

--p!

[Fridays Child]

15. Actually, the question never came up, for me, until I saw this story...

...at which point I learned, without the Google's assistance, that it is possible.

[helderheid]

13. Beautiful!

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Check out the Quagga project:

This project, started in 1987, is an attempt by a group of dedicated people in South Africa to bring back an animal from extinction and reintroduce it into reserves in its former habitat.

When the Quagga mare at Amsterdam Zoo died on 12 August 1883, it was not realised that she was the very last of her kind. Because of the confusion caused by the indiscriminate use of the term "Quagga" for any zebra, the true Quagga was hunted to extinction without this being realised until many years later.

http://www.quaggaproject.org/

[Fridays Child]

21. Cool!

[rug]

16. That's Lieberman's new mascot.

[Fridays Child]

18. Nah. Joe's new mascot is an elephant. No doubt about it.

It might be an elephant in a (really big) closet but it's definitely an elephant.

[Warpy]

19. What remains to be seen

are whether or not she'll be fertile and what her disposition is like. Those are the two things that cause a lot of hybrids to fail, like the mule hybrid of horse and donkey that is sterile and the wolf hybrid of wolf and dog that is often temperamentally unsuited to close contact with people.

She is a beautiful, er, equine.

[Fridays Child]

22. Supposedly, she behaves fairly well but does, occasionally exhibit...

...a temperament more closely associated with zebras than with horses.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

23. True love knows no boundaries

It's a beautiful creature.

[soothsayer]

24. sterile hybrid (called a Zorse. Zeedonk is zebra donkey)

Has to have a zebra dad.

[uppityperson]

26. here's another picture.

[rucky]

29. Dr. Moreau left the island & moved to the country.

Is this what Bush was warning us about in that SOTU speech?

be afraid.

[damntexdem]

30. Aww, they cheated:

the father was really an African lion.

[ZenKitty]

31. It is called a zorse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorse

[aikoaiko]

32. My favorite hybrid.

the jackalope.