Horses and donkeys have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years, and the zebras on the African continent are close relatives of them, so why have they never been tamed? Is it because the indigenous people of Africa do not understand the technology of domestication, or is there something wrong with the zebras themselves?
Zebras, more stubborn than you think
Recall that there are many human mounts, from the common horse to the fierce-tempered ostrich, all of which have become human mounts.
Even in the United States, there is a peculiar race, the ostrich riding race, in which the person must not fall off the ostrich during the race, and must ride them through a variety of challenges, and the first participant to reach the finish line wins. And such a game has been maintained for quite some time.
But we've never seen a race on a zebra, let alone a successful ride on a zebra. This is mainly because of the zebra's temper, which is too stubborn.
As can be seen in the zebra riding competition in the United States, the focus of this race is not whether the competitors can reach the finish line as quickly as possible, but whether the competitors can sit firmly on the zebra without being thrown off by them.
Even if they manage to make it to the edge of the finish line, these zebras will not let the competitors get their hands dirty. They will suddenly turn around and slam the contestants to the ground as soon as they let their guard down. After this race, the contestant who can control the zebra can be described as a rare warrior.
Why is it that other animals are so easy to tame, but when it comes to zebras, it has become a headache for humans?
Why are these animals so tamable?
According to the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by the famous contemporary scientist Jared Diamond, in order to domesticate an animal, the following conditions need to be met:
Whether the animals are docile and gregarious enough, whether they are easy to breed in captivity, and whether they have social hierarchy, etc., also depends on whether the places where these animals live can obtain wild edible plants suitable for domestication, and domestic animals such as cattle, horses, and pigs domesticated by humans have the same characteristics.
This is why large animals such as horses and cows are easy to domesticate because they live in a more comfortable environment and are easy to breed in captivity, so they are more easily used by humans than other animals.
Giraffes are used as a counter-example, they have become accustomed to collecting leaves from trees several meters high, and humans want to feed them, either by planting different kinds of tall trees, or by building a high platform for food, so even if the giraffe is docile, it is impossible for us to domesticate them.
In addition to environmental factors, there are also intellectual factors and the ability to make connections. Dogs, for example, have a high level of intelligence and are very socially active, and can quickly establish a good relationship with humans. They are also able to understand the signals that humans send to them in ordinary life, so they are easily domesticated.
There are also some social animals, which have a strong bond with each other. There must be a leader among these animals, such as the leader, the "wolf king", etc., and the other animals will only obey their boss, so as long as humans spend some time to tame these leaders, they can also not spend too much energy to tame other animals.
In addition to this, the most important point for humans is to see if the animal can bring enough benefits to themselves before domesticating it.
For example, humans domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep because they contributed to agricultural production and made important contributions to human food sources, and humans domesticated horses because horses had excellent performance in all aspects and could play an important role in the fields of industry and agriculture, transportation, freight transportation and warfare in the early human years.
In the process of domesticating these animals, humans don't need to take a lot of risks to get high returns, so why not? So humans are also selective in taming animals.
From this point of view, in order to tame an animal, it is necessary to connect with the things around it, and whether an animal is easy to tame is closely related to its own nature and environmental factors.
Want to tame zebras? No way
Returning to the zebras, most of them live in Africa, in a very backward environment. Not to mention that it is very difficult for zebras to find their food, and even the locals do not have the ability and demand to domesticate zebras.
Most of the zebras live in Africa, where the overall development is relatively backward, and domesticated animals need to be developed to a certain degree of agriculture to support, there is not enough food sources, and the local people do not have the ability or strong demand to domesticate zebras.
The perilous living environment of the African savannah has created a cautious and vigilant character of zebras, which also makes them more "startled", sometimes a zebra is accidentally frightened, and a large group of zebras may run wild at the same time.
When it comes to taming animals as a condition - social sex, by taming the leader to "take the others under his command". Zebras are superficially social animals, but they are actually "bulk".
In the African savannah, you can see zebras that move alone, and these solitary zebras are usually males. And those zebras that often travel together are mostly females, traveling with their children. In these zebras, they all have the same status, and there are few leaders.
Once these zebras are in danger, they will "fly separately" and run their own way, completely ignoring other zebras. This shows that zebras are extremely poor in social behavior, and humans cannot expect to tame zebras by taming the leader.
Zebra also has a big problem with the wild is particularly strong, after all, the African savannah is full of dangers, there are many predators, so that the zebras are forced to have a strong aggressiveness, raise their hind hooves and kick a kick can force back lions and hyenas, but they can also bite on the mouth, and the lethality to people is far greater than that of ordinary horses and donkeys.
Those who have tried it say that zebras are difficult to breed in captivity, and that it takes a lot of energy to tame and domesticate these wild zebras, which is not a good deal for humans.
Even if humans were able to domesticate zebras, their breeding process would be quite cumbersome. The breeding cycle of zebras is quite long, with females giving birth once every 3 years, giving birth to one litter per litter.
Even if the baby zebra survives in a hostile environment, it will take 3 to 4 years to reach sexual maturity, and the entire breeding cycle will be too long to be a potential domesticated animal in any way.
It's hard to tame, but it's excellent
Zebras are difficult to tame, but in order to survive in the wild, zebras also have their own real skills.
At present, there are only three types of zebras in the world: plain zebra, mountain zebra and fine striped zebra, and they can be distinguished by their size and markings.
The mountain zebra is the smallest of the whole zebra family, but it has the thickest stripes on its body, and the plain zebra is the most common zebra we usually find in the African savannah, it is slightly larger than the mountain zebra, and the stripes are dominated by black pinstriped bars.
Cape Mountain Zebra
The Zebra is much larger and has finer and denser stripes than the other two, but they are one of the worst species, endangered and can only be found in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Zebra with fine stripes
Although these stripes may not seem much different to the uninitiated, they can be very useful. First of all, the most important use of these zebra stripes is to confuse the enemy.
If a zebra moves on the grassland, it will be quickly recognized by predators, but when a group of zebras runs in groups, the zebra stripes and the shadows of the plants quickly interchange, making it impossible for predators to accurately estimate the distance between each other, that is, they will be "dazzled".
Scientists have experimented with red paint on specific zebras and made them move with other zebras. Soon, they discovered that the marked zebra had been targeted and eaten by a lion shortly after.
In addition, to the surprise of many people, these seemingly conspicuous zebra stripes are also natural mosquito repellents.
For this reason, some Japanese scientists divided six cows into three control groups, and painted white stripes 4~5 cm wide and 4~5 cm apart on the first group, the second group was painted with black stripes, and the third group was tested as it was.
The end result was that the cattle painted with white stripes were the least bitten by mosquitoes.
To further test their hypothesis, other scientists experimented with a different object. They used sticky mosquito boards with different patterns to compare, and found that the pure white board had the highest number of mosquitoes glued to it, while the zebra-like board was less attractive to mosquitoes and had the best insect repellent effect.
In addition to the above two functions, the stripes on the zebra's body also have the effect of regulating body temperature. Scientists at a university in the United States found that the hotter the climate, the more black stripes there are on zebras, and vice versa.
It turns out that this is because the black stripes on the zebra can absorb more heat, while the white stripes can reflect the sun's rays, which makes the temperature of different stripes on the zebra different, which in turn forms a temperature difference, which can help the zebra lower its body temperature.
There are data that the temperature of zebra skin is 2~3 degrees Celsius lower than that of other mammals living in the same environment.
Looking at it this way, it is not easy for zebras to survive in such a harsh environment.
Sometimes, for some animals, we humans don't have to tame them to gain a sense of conquest. It's good to let these animals be happy and live their lives in peace.
Bibliography:
[1] The little woman doesn't understand science What is the use of zebra stripes?
[2] NetEase What are the stripes of zebras used for?
[3] Images, sounds, and colors of animals How many species of zebras are there in the world?
[4] The elite soldier argues that zebras run fast and are handsome, why haven't they been domesticated by humans?
[5] Science Sightseeing is also a horse, why can't zebras be ridden?
[6] Baidu Library Why animals are easy to tame
[7] Continental Horse Racing Network Ostriches, camels and even zebras can also ride on horses to race?
[8] Why didn't humans domesticate zebras as mounts? Grumpy and "neurotic", who would dare to ride?