zebra

"Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?" -Pablo Picasso As an animal lover, like others here on scienceblogs, as well as a big fan of Halloween costumes, it's probably unsurprising that a good, creative animal costume will crack me up. Three more turtle dogs and a giant rat will complete the set! Turn your sweet, harmless puppy into the fearsome guardian of Hades by adding two extra heads! Sometimes, you just need to play to your strengths. In this case, it's ridiculous cuteness. Dressing animals like other animals is practically its own artform…
"That is Shadowfax. He is chief of the Maeras, lords of all horses, and not even Theoden, King of Rohan, has ever looked on a better. Does he not shine like silver, and run as smoothly as a swift stream?" - Gandalf In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf rides upon a magnificent white stallion called Shadowfax. White horses have been greatly prized in human societies as a sign of wealth and dignity, largely because their bright coats are both pretty and rare. There are reasons for that. In the wild, the same conspicuousness that inspires legendary tales also makes white horses vulnerable to…
tags: zebras, Equus quagga burchelli, photography, Image of the Day Burchell's (plains) zebras, Equus quagga burchelli, create a mirror image in their enclosure at the Zoological Park in Delhi, India. Image: BBCNews. Burchell's zebra has distinctive stripes that run diagonally and lengthways on the rump and continue on to the belly. They often have chestnut or yellowish "shadow" stripes in the middle of the white stripes on their rumps. If you look closely at the two animals in the image, you'll notice that they are not marked identically -- in fact, each individual zebra has a unique…
There are some animals that seem to exist in a bit of taxonomic confusion (at least in the literature; I don't think zebras lose sleep over their species names), the Plains Zebra being one of these. The animals pictured above are from the Philadelphia Zoo and listed as being members of the species Equus burchellii, but recent work appears to show that this most common of Zebra species should really be called Equus quagga. Burchell's Zebra, then, is relegated to the status of a subspecies with the name Equus quagga burchellii, itself taking precedence over the subspecies Equus quagga…
The accidental product of a study abroad program in Italy, Eclyse is a visually fascinating example of mixed genetic material. Eclyse's mother was a zebra living at a German safari park. When she was sent on loan to Italy, she was allowed to roam free in an enclosure with both horses and zebras. Upon her return to the amusingly named Schloss Holte Stukenbrock in Germany, keepers were surprised to find she was pregnant but even more surprised to see the young foal. Called a "zorse" or a "zebroid" (pretty much lose, lose if you ask us), typically the offspring of a zebra and horse have stripes…