h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's another sketch I scanned in:

http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Illustrations%20General/Bergkwagga1b.jpg

This is a Cape Mountain Zebra. Most of you reading this probably don't know that there are only three zebra species in the entire world, and that two of them are endangered, this being one. The other rare one is the Grevy's Zebra of northeast Africa, and the only common and widespread one is the Burchell's Zebra.

The Cape Mountain Zebra is currently only found in a few nature reserves here in South Africa, the principal one being the Mountain Zebra National Park in the Eastern Cape. This zebra lives in dry, rocky, mountainous regions with scrubby vegetation.

The Hartmann's Mountain Zebra is the same species, but lives in the northern Cape, Nambia and a small bit of Angola. It also lives in dry mountainous regions.

The easiest way to distinguish this zebra is by the dewlap it has beneath its throat. No other zebra has that. Its coat pattern is also unique, but as with other zebras this varies individually.

I will try and write something about zebras for Colours of Wildlife. They are beautiful horsies! It seems that stripiness might be the ancestral or default condition for horses of the genus Equus, with those horses that moved outside the tropics having lost the stripes. The African wild asses that live on the northern borders of the tropics still have stripes on their legs, and the Quagga (a fourth kind of zebra, now extinct) that lived just beyond the southern border of the tropics also had lost the stripes over most of its body. But the Mountain Zebra, the southern populations of which are also well outside of the tropics, is still very stripey.

There used to be a pantsload more horse species on this planet than there are today ... only seven species survive at present. Donkeys and horses are abundant in domestication but their wild versions are very rare or even extinct (a subspecies of wild horse as well as a subspecies of wild donkey).

I like the zebra. I didn't know there was a mountain zebra.

Wow, that seems to be a big animal to be supported by such a barren landscape! I guess there must be some vegatation near springs or creeks if they are up that high, but domestic horses require a fair amount of grasses or hay.

Hi Dmitri and Elektra! The mountains on which these zebras live are not like the Rocky Mountains you have over there, they are lower and do have vegetation, though it is sparse. But wild horses are actually hardy ... the three species of wild ass all live in deserts, the Kiang on the VERY high and barren Tibetan plateau. Two of the three zebra species live in semi-desert, and over here there are feral horses living successfully in the Namib desert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib_Desert_Horse