Zonkey born a happy accident

Heading into Easter weekend, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust released a statement stating that their wayward zebra had given birth to a zonkey.

Zonkey’s are a highly unusual hybrid between a zebra and a donkey. The trust didn’t realize until several weeks after the birth when they noticed that the foal was lacking significant stripes.

The zebra was originally moved to the Trust’s Kenze Anti-Poaching Team’s base in Chyulu National Park last May after being discovered in a local woman’s cattle herd.

Since the gestation period of a zebra is twelve months, it’s obvious that during her time living with the cattle community, she found a good-looking donkey to mate with. The zonkey combines the sturdy body of its donkey sire and the striped legs of its zebra mother.

According to Animals.net, zonkey’s first became really prominent to the public when one was accidentally sired in the 1970’s in the UK’s Colchester Zoo. Furthermore, the biologist Charles Darwin mentioned the possibility of a fertile female zonkey at the London Zoo.

Zonkey’s are very strong and fast animals capable of running up to 60 kph. The Trust say’s the zonkey should live a normal life, but they are mules and won’t be able to breed once it reaches maturity.

“We have over the decades raised many orphaned zebras, and in time, we will add to this unusual pair when it becomes time to release any zebra orphans, while this unusual pair wait for some wild zebra’s to discover them both,” said Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. “Until that day comes, they seem quite content to spend their days grazing side-by-side, a sight that makes us all stop and marvel at the wonders of nature.”

Unfortunately, zonkey’s do not make good pets because they seem to inherit a tendency to be aggressive towards humans from their zebra mother. This aggression is sometimes directed towards other animals.