Zebras Zebras are mammals from Africa, well known for its characteristic striped coat. They have a strip of erect hair along the neck, large ears and a tail that ends in a tuft of dark hair. The pattern of stripes is a perfect camouflage in their natural habitat. The main enemies of the zebra are lions and human hunters who previously hunted them in the past for their meat and skin. There are three species of zebra and several subspecies, as variations in the provision of the lines of the coat. The mountain zebra is the smallest of the species; measured 1.2 m height of the cross and has a well-proportioned body, strong and muscular. When the Portuguese began to explore the African coast and reached the Cape of Good hope at the end of the fifteenth century, they found some striped equines that they were remarkably similar in shape and size to the female zebra, (species that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula to extinction in the fifteenth century) and therefore decided to call zebras or zebras. The word "zebra" or "zebra" does not represent a reality in terms of evolution, but three species artificially grouped according to a character (the striped coat) that is not derivative, but primitive. The stripes are also, to a greater or lesser extent, present in the legs and backs of donkeys and wild horses, and manifest themselves more heavily in hybrids, although among parents there is no showing that the presence of stripes. The zebras simply have simply gone a step further in developing these stripes that they already possessed, while horses and donkeys have tended to lose or at least have their’s masked. Although taxonomy of zebras remains questionable, some studies, like that of Debra K. Bennett, indicate that the zebra hails from the plains of Africa and has many sister species. However, it is interesting to note that the mountain zebra is more related to the horse than to common zebras. Within the current genus of horses, the group formed by traditional African and Asian donkeys would be the only one with an evolutionary history behind it that is linked to the present day zebra. Zebras tend to be smaller than its relative, the horse, and very similar in appearance and habits to wild donkey. Mountain zebras live in small herds and inhabit mountainous areas of South Africa. This species was very abundant in the past, but now their stocks are depleted due to very intense hunting for their meat and skin. |
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