The zebroid, a new beast bred by Uncle Sam, after James Ewart

December 11, 2019 8:25 AM

In 1904, Ethopia's Emperor Menelik II (Wikipedia) presented two monkeys, two ostriches, one zebra, and one lioness to President Theodore Roosevelt (New York Times archive). The zebra, later named Dan, was paired with a number of female horses, in the goal of making a more docile saddle and pack animal that could also survive in Africa. Dan would have none of it, and stopped an ill-fated government breeding program in its tracks (Smithsonian Magazine). But this wasn't the only attempt to make a zebroid (Wikipedia).

There were some early breeding successes in the U.S., as seen in this digital copy of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from March 1906, but they worked best in harness, as might have been the case for the earliest era of horse taming and domestication (Wikipedia).

These efforts followed Scottish zoologist James Cossar Ewart's Penicuick Experiments in animal breeding that started around the years 1894-95 (Towards Dolly: Edinburgh, Roslin and the Birth of Modern Genetics blog post). Some of his work in cross-breeding zebra with horses and donkeys was documented in Nature in 1899, in the article "The Penycuik Experiments" (abstract with link to full PDF), where it is noted that the zebroids, when inoculated with tsetse organism (trypanosomiasis - Wikipedia), did not survive.

Still, people continue to breed zebra hybids (Mentalfloss), and properly raised and trained, zebra hybrids can be worked under saddle (LoveLongEars.com, the American Donkey & Mule Society (ADMS)).

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

And at some time, Melenik also gave Roosevelt a hyena, which was later named Bill (Presidential Pet Museum.com), but I digress.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:27 AM on December 11, 2019

The article also talks about Moose remaining not-domesticated, and now I'm down another internet rabbit hole.
posted by Popular Ethics at 8:36 AM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

Ooh, fascinating! I was assuming they were also ornery animals, but National Geographic's summary seems to be that moose are much more open to training and/or taming.

An interesting note from the Wikipedia page on horse domestication -- it currently includes this phrase:

Some researchers do not consider an animal to be "domesticated" until it exhibits physical changes consistent with selective breeding, or at least having been born and raised entirely in captivity. Until that point, they classify captive animals as merely "tamed".

It's all news to me, so I can't say advocate or support one theory or the other.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:49 AM on December 11, 2019

Other zebras were brought in to supplement the program, and crossed with southwestern burros (feral donkeys) to produce zebra-ass hybrids
Heh heh look at those are some zebra-ass hybrids alright
posted by bleep at 1:36 PM on December 11, 2019 [2 favorites]