If you were shocked to find out that a mule is the offspring of a horse and a donkey, you might need to sit down. The offspring of a zebra stallion and a horse mare is a zorse. The zorse is just one of several animal hybrids people have succeeded in creating by breeding a zebra stallion with another equine species. The zedonk, zebra mule and zony are the products of this pairing, for example. Zorses come in all shapes and sizes, but they usually have the body shape and coloring of their mother, only with more stripes. While their zebra bands aren't full-body or black-and-white, they are prominent and arresting, and usually confined to their necks, legs and rumps. It's possible but less common to breed a male stallion with a female zebra to produce a zebra hinny, also called a donkra. There's even a name for these zebra-involved hybrids: zebroids. What's interesting about animal hybrids like the zorse is that, although they have traits of both their parents, some things are different. For instance, a lot of animal hybrids are infertile, and the zorse is no exception. Infertility comes from the two parent animals having different numbers of chromosomes, which prevents their chromosomes from pairing up correctly during meiosis (cell division). Zorses are also prone to dwarfism, and generally run smaller than either of their parent species. Although zorses are often smaller than either of their parents, ligers — the offspring of a tiger and a lion — generally grow much bigger than either of their parents ever would. The hybridization causes a hormonal imbalance where their bodies produce growth hormones throughout their entire life, similar to gigantism in some humans.
