Animals Directory

Archive for the ‘Typical Zebra’ Category

Are peculiar to Africa. The word “zebra” or “zebra” is not a reality from the evolutionary standpoint, but artificially three species groups based on a character (scratch coat) that is not derivative but original.

The stripes also appear in greater or lesser extent in the legs and backs of donkeys and horses, and manifest themselves more strongly in the hybrids, although the parents are not using any Zebra (for mules), showing that the presence of stripes is an old character in the genus Equips and not itself a derivative of a subgroup within it. Zebras have simply gone one step further in the development of some lines that already possessed, while horses and donkeys have tended to lose or at least mask them.

Although the taxonomy of the zebras remains uncertain, studies, such as Debra K. Bennett (released under the eloquent title the stripes do not make the zebra), indicate that the plain zebra and Gravy’s zebra are sister species, but the zebras are more closely related to the horse with them. Within the current horses, the traditional group composed of African and Asian asses would be the only one with an evolutionary history behind it supports. It is smaller than its cousin, the horse, and very similar in appearance and habits of the wild ass.

Zebras are one of the best known animals of Africa, home to a variety of ecosystems including grassy plains, savannas, woodlands or shrubs, mountains and coastal hills. They are especially famous for their characteristic black and white stripes, which vary not only between species but also from one individual to another, and his mane erect. Unlike their closest relatives, horses and donkeys, zebras have never really been domesticated.

With the exception of some populations of plains zebra living in central Ethiopia, zebras live only in the southern half of Africa. Although the regions of two different species may overlap, do not cross due to different numbers of chromosomes, the Gravy’s zebras are forty-six, common zebras forty-four and mountain zebras thirty-two.

While black and white stripes that zebras have to be a common feature, the three zebra species have no closer relationship between them than they do with other animals of the genus Equips. In addition, the common feature of the lines is not so short, one of the subspecies of plains zebra, the extinct quake was only scratches on his neck. On the other hand, other Peristyle also have stripes on the legs.

Despite having morphology similar to that of the horses are smaller, with an average size of 2.3 meters long, 1.2 to 1.5 meters tall at the withers and weighing about 300 kilograms despite the Gravy’s zebra can weigh up to 450 kilograms. In the latter species, males and females have similar size, but in the plains zebras and mountain zebra’s males are slightly larger.

Zebras have a total of forty teeth: twelve incisors used for cutting and start bits of vegetation, four dogs, twelve premolars and twelve molars, all used to grind food before swallowing them.