• Question: Are zebras and horses technicallty the same breed of animal?

    Asked by elliejayne to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      No, they’re all in the same general family (genus) of “equus” but this is vast and includes horses, zebra, asses, and donkeys.

      Apparently some zebras evolved from horses and some from asses, so either stripes evolved twice or they have a common stripey ancestor and horses and asses lost their stripes, interesting! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra#Taxonomy_and_evolution

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      No, the term ‘breed’ actually only applies to domestic animals (and plants) and is used to describe different groups of animals of the same species in terms of how they look and behave. For example the teeny tiny Chihuahua and the massive Newfoundland are both breeds the same species.

      As Judith says, zebras and horses are different species, so they can’t be the same breed.

      As a side point, I want a Newfoundland a lot… they’re like giant gentle bears 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl8SYNuaKQ

      (sorry, bit off topic… I wouldn’t mind a zebra either though)

    • Photo: Akshat Rathi

      Akshat Rathi answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      I am going to on a tangent too. Gemma’s youtube interruption made me look up videos of zebras and most of those videos had the zebra in a zoo. I’ve never liked zoos for what they do to a wild animal. Looking at the videos make me sulk even more. 🙁

Comments