Also – do they have white base with black stripes or black core with white hair? How did this help them survive in the wild?
In: Biology
Eli5:
Horses grew up with wolves and bears, which you can run away from if they get kinda close.
While horses are big and strong, they’re just big softies that are really good at running away from things if they get scared or upset.
That means if you can keep it calm, it will be a big softy, and if you fall off one or spook it, it will try to run away.
Since horses like to run away from things, we can put them on a very long leash or in a large, round playpen, and just let them run around while we are nearby until they say “okay, people aren’t that bad.”
Zebras on the other hand grew up with lions and crocodiles and other fast-attack ambush hunters. If a Zebra is a big softie, it gets eaten.
That makes Zebras very, VERY mean. If you scare a Zebra, it will turn around and bite you and kick you until you want to run away instead of it.
So if we put a Zebra on a long leash and try to make it run in circles, it will just start trying to step on you.
Same thing happens if you try to ride one and you fall off.
So it’s just really really difficult to become friends with a Zebra.
(Non Eli5: the way we break horses is essentially through simulated persistence hunting, if we try this with Zebras, they’ll just turn around and kill us).
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