07.05.07
Zorse, a horse zebra cross
Meet Eclyse - the amazing zebra crossing
It looks as if someone tried to give a zebra a respray. . . then ran out of white paint halfway through the job.
But in reality there is no artificial colouring on display here. This amazing but natural coat belongs to Eclyse the zorse. Her father is a zebra, while her mother is a horse. And she’s walking proof of how a child inherits genes from both parents.
Eclyse, a zorse at a safari park in Germany
Eclyse has earnt her stripes as one of the zoo’s main attractions. For while most zebra-horse crossbreeds sport stripes across their entire body, Eclyse only has two such patches, on its face and rear.
The one-year-old zorse was the accidental product of a holiday romance when her mother, Eclipse, was taken from her German safari park home to a ranch in Italy for a brief spell.
There she was able to roam freely with other horses and a number of zebras, including one called Ulysses who took a fancy to her. When Eclipse returned home, she surprised her keepers by giving birth to the baby zorse whose mixed markings betray her colourful parentage.
The foal was promptly given a name that is in itself a hybrid of her parents’ names. Now she’s become a major attraction at a safari park at Schloss Holte Stukenbrock, near the German border with Holland, where she has her own enclosure.
Udo Richter, spokesman for the park, said, “You can tell she is a mix just by looking at her. But in temperament she can also exhibit characteristics from each parent.
“She is usually relatively tame like a horse but occasionally shows the fiery temperament of a zebra, leaping around like one.”
Horses and zebras are often crossbred in Africa and are used as trekking animals on Mount Kenya.
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MUCHO THANKS to S.C. for passing this cutie on! and I always thought zebras and horses wouldn’t cross!
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MORE ON ZORSE– reprinted FROM nzherald.co.nz
See LINK there for a VIDEO!
Zebra + horse = zorse Friday June 29, 2007
One-year-old Eclyse the zorse looks as though she has been covered in white paint. Photo / Reuters
It has to be the ultimate zebra crossing.
Eclyse the zorse is striking proof of how an offspring inherits genes from both parents - which in her case was a male zebra and a female horse. The result is shown in her amazing coat which looks like a zebra’s that has been partly covered in white paint.
While most zebra-horse crossbreeds have stripes across their entire body, Eclyse has only two such patches, on her face and rump. The 1-year-old was born after her mother, Eclipse, was taken from her German safari park home to visit a ranch in Italy.
There she was left to roam freely with other horses and a number of zebras. One zebra called Ulysses took a shine to her and there was some horseplay. When she arrived home to Germany, Eclyse’s mother surprised her keepers by giving birth to a baby zorse. Eclyse has become a major attraction at her home safari park at Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, near the German border with Holland.
Hybrids are an interesting curiosity. The mule is perhaps the most famous cross - a combination between a horse and a donkey - and an animal of economic importance because it is a hard worker.
Hybrids are not easy to create, however. The mating pair’s different number of chromosomes - the “packets” of DNA in each cell - makes a pregnancy hard to achieve. A horse has 64 chromosomes; the zebra has 44. The zorse that results from cross-breeding will have a number of chromosomes that is somewhere in between.
The zorse can only result where the sire is the zebra.
“The smaller number of chromosomes has to be on the male side,” said Lesley Barwise-Munro, a veterinary surgeon in Alnwick, Northumberland, and a spokeswoman for the British Equine Veterinary Association. “If it had been the other way around there would have been no pregnancy. It’s how nature works.”
And hybrids were invariably sterile, she added.
More about Zorses:
Zebras, donkeys, and horses are all members of the family equus –
equines. Meaning Equines can be crossbred to produce hybrids. A horse
with a donkey or a horse with a zebra. making the new hybrid also an
Equine. They are all slightly different in genetic makeup though, horses
have 64 chromosomes, zebra have between 44 and 62 (depending on
species). Zorses can be male or female, but are sterile since their
chromosome count is 63.
Amanda Groff
original pet portraits said,
July 5, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Beautiful! I think this is the kindest output of an extraordinary mixing of genes from creatures coming from two different worlds. Although a horse and a zebra are both from the animal kingdom, the fact still remains that a zebra is different from the horse. I call it the kindest because the stripe skin is OK to look at and in fact it has made Eclyse truly attractive. In worst cases, the mixing of genes results in abnormalities such as extra ears, fingers, legs and other. Those are horrible. To Eclyse, you’re still blessed because your mom and your dad made you truly beautiful.
kristin batterby said,
September 26, 2007 at 8:53 pm
that horse/zebra is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute i had never seen anything like that before it is sooooooooooooooooo unique
Oswald taylor said,
September 29, 2007 at 9:36 am
Crossing a Zebra with a Chromosome count of 44 with a horse of chromosome count 64 should, theoretically, yield an offspring with a chromosome count of 54. If this was the case, Eclyse should in theory be able to breed with another zorse of the same chromosome count(54).
It’s been establalished that donkeys have a chromosome count of 62 and it was mentioned above that some zebras have 62 chromosomes. This suggest that a mating between a donkey and a zebra, of the same chromosome count, should more easily produce offspring than either a horse-donkey mating or a horse-zebra mating.
Some one with expertise in this field please comment.
Jessie said,
March 19, 2008 at 12:51 pm
That is so weird. But it’s cool. I didn’t know that their was any such animal called a Zorse. It’s pretty cool. But weird. I want 2 show these pics 2 my dad. He’ll think it’s interesting.
Jessie said,
March 19, 2008 at 12:53 pm
That is so weird. But cool. I didn’t know that there was any such animal called a Zorse. It’s cool. But weird. I want 2 show my dad these pics. He’ll think their interesting.
abbey said,
October 8, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Hi,
i know it is a cool name and all but i am the one who came up with the name “zorse”! not even kidding! it all started when i wrote a letter to Karl-Heinz( owner of the zorse ). i was at my grandmas house and she told me about the new species in teh newspaper a couple days back. she told me it was a mix between a zebra and a horse. i automaticly said” what?!? you mean like a zorse?” and she said” Abbey, what is a zorse?” i said”i don’t know? i just made it up.” and somehow i ended up writing an e-mail to him!
so that’s pretty much how the name ” zorse ” was made!
your sincerily,
Abbey