Zebras spend up to 60% of their day eating, but the question is what are they eating? Are they eating a smaller animal? No, zebras are not carnivores, not even omnivores. The zebra is a herbivore, a grazer, and spends most of it’s day eating grass. Their teeth and lips allow them to bite the grass off and grind it up with their molars. The have a digestive system and metabolism that can thrive on a low-nutrition diet. When grass may not be as abundant, they will eat shrubs, twigs, bark, and leaves. However they much prefer grass, every dry grass, grass stems, and sheath. Zebras in zoos are fed hay, oats, and alfalfa, much like horses. In the wild though they tend to stay near a water hole in grasslands, savannas, coastal, hill, or mountainous regions. Since they spend so much of their time eating, they have to migrate after they have depleted an area of it’s grass.

The zebra is losing it’s habitat to ranching and farming and has to compete with livestock for water. Zebras are also hunted for their skins. Climate change is causing droughts that is drying up the zebras food source and forcing them to congregate with other animals at the remaining water sources, which has raised the amount of disease transmission. So how has all of this affected the zebra? The zebra is officially an endangered species. Overall, the number of plains zebras is about 750,000, with only 2,500 Grevy’s zebras, about 650 cape mountain zebras, and about 1,050 Hartmann’s mountain zebras left in the wild. Man’s influence has a lot to do with the endangerment of the zebra. The animals are losing their grazing land to humans. These animals eat for about 60% of their day, for their food sources to be depleted is detrimental to them. Also hunting zebras for their skins is another way that man has contributed to endangering this beautiful animal.

Zebras’ black and white coloring sticks out like a sore thumb to us humans. They are up against brown and tan and brown and tan. Some wonder how this is supposed to help them ward off predators. However the zebras predators are colorblind. This means that their stripes blend in with the tall grass they are standing amongst. So while we can spot a zebra because of their color, their predators have trouble spotting them. This helps explain why the zebras patterning is the way it is. It really is a camouflage for them. Considering where they graze, stripes to look like tall grass are perfect.

Knowing the zebra’s ancestor is similar to the horse and the donkey, both very calm animals, one might wonder how aggressive are zebras. They are known to run away at the first sign of trouble or danger. This does not seem like the behavior of an aggressive animal. However in the right situations zebras can show aggressive behaviors. One such situation being if a predator comes near the herd. The herd works together to protect the more vulnerable, especially the young. The stallion, male zebra, who is keeping watch will go on the offensive and attack any predator that gets close enough. This gives the rest of the herd a chance to get away. Female zebras, mares, with become extremely aggressive if they feel like their offspring are threatened. They will kick violently at any perceived threat. This kick has the potential to seriously harm or even kill predators such as lions or wild dogs.

Mating is another time when zebras show an aggressive nature. The stallions fight to add new mares to their harems. Mares within the same harems fight to be alpha female, and therefore the first to mate with the stallion. This behavior does not get nearly as aggressive as when fighting off predators. These behaviors are used to show social status and keep others in line.
Zebras have never been domesticated. This tells us something about the nature of this animal. Humans have been able to domesticate horses and donkey, both are related to zebras. However the zebra is to unpredictable and tends to panic if it feels stressed or frightened. They will bite or kick their hind legs at any sign of danger.

So while zebras are not considered an excessively aggressive animal, people still need to understand that they are a wild animal and have not been domesticated the way horses have. There is no way to predict how they would react to a human approaching them. Any person wanting to approach one should be cautious and know that zebras have very powerful kicks and will bite.

It’s reasonable why people might question if you can domesticate zebras. Their relative, the horse, has been domesticated for centuries. However, while there have been attempts, zebras have never been domesticated. In rare cases individual zebras have been “tamed”. The species in general is too aggressive and runs away at the sign of danger. In order to domesticate a species it takes generations. The animal must be willing to recognize humans as the master or leader. Zebras only recognize other zebras as their leader. In Africa they tried to domesticate Zebra’s because they are not affected by the tsetse fly bites. However no one has ever succeeded in fully domesticating the animal. They don’t have the right temperament. One of the major hindrances is that they run away at any sign of danger.

Zebras are recognizable to anyone as the black and white striped animal. However people wonder are those stripes there at birth or are they something that develops later. Zebra foals are born with stripes yes, but with black and white stripes, no. The zebra foals are born with brown and white stripes. As they mature the brown darkens into a black. No two zebras have the same stripe pattern, this makes it so that they can be recognized easier. If a foal were born with out stripes it would be harder for the mare to identify her offspring. Also zebras gestate for about a year. This means that maybe the stripes had time to develop during the long pregnancy. We do know that zebra foals come into this world already donning their stripes.

Color blindness is a trait that occurs in most mammals. Humans are an exception, except those whose mother carries the trait. Several people wonder if the animal that is only black and white can only see black and white. However it is thought that zebras are one of the few other mammals that can see color. The zebra can spot a lion in the grass with enough time to run away. This indicates that the zebra can see the color of it’s predator, giving it a leg up for survival. Most likely zebras’ eyes evolved in order to help the species survive.

Donkeys and zebras have some similarities such as there body shape and long limbs. Their solid tail with a tuff or hair at the end. A short mane that tend to stick up. This similarities may make you wonder are zebras and donkeys related. Well the come from the same Genus, Equus, like horses. The species is different however, the donkey is Equus asinus and the plains zebra is Equus burchelli. This means that they have a common ancestor, but their species split millions of years ago, and both evolved in different ways to help them survive their surroundings.

Here are a few differences between the donkey and the zebra:

1. In times of danger or panic, the zebra will run away, fleeing it’s predator. The donkey on the other hand will simply freeze when it is frightened.

2. Zebras spend around 60% of their day eating. The donkey however are adapted to marginal desert lands and therefore do not need as much food.

3. Donkey’s have been domesticated, whereas zebras have not.

They have a common ancestor and in fact share that ancestor with horses. The domesticated donkey was once the wild African ass. Knowing that makes their relation make more sense, since zebras are African animals.So the short and sweet answer to the question are zebras and donkeys related, is yes.

When looking at pictures of zebras you may notice some of them seem to be brown and some seem to be black. So what color are they? Zebras are black and white. No matter what subgenus. So why do some appear to be brown? When zebras are born they are brown. However their coloring soon changes to black. If you every spot a zebra that appears to be brown in coloring, you are looking at a young zebra, probably in the first few months of it’s life. However the right answer to the question are zebras black or brown: black.

Zebras are mammals. Which means they have mammary gland which produce milk to feed their young, They also have hair, three bones in their ears and a four chamber heart. One of the biggest indicators of a mammal is that they are warm-blooded. What does it mean to be warm-blooded? These animals maintain a relatively high body temperature. They do this with their metabolism, when the body breaks down cells, it produces energy and heat. In a cold-blooded animal, this heat would be lost and would leave the animal. In a warm-blooded animal though, this heat is stored and used to keep the body temperature high and consistent.