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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm

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Speaker 1: Christian Saga and this is brain stuff. You may have

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Speaker 1: seen a few videos on the internet of zebras being

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Speaker 1: ridden around and it looks pretty cool. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: talking about movies like Sheena Queen of the Jungle where

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Speaker 1: actors just ride a horse painted to look like a zebra.

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Speaker 1: Zebras would be useful to ride, especially in some parts

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Speaker 1: of Africa, because of their resistance to the diseases that

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Speaker 1: kill horses and cattle. It's not impossible, So what's the deal.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we ride zebras well? Zebras can be tamed,

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Speaker 1: but they can't be domesticated, much like elephants. A domesticated

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Speaker 1: animal is defined as an animal selectively bred in captivity

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Speaker 1: and thereby modified from its wild ancestors for use by

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Speaker 1: humans who control the animals breeding and food supply. The

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Speaker 1: success rate for domesticating most animals is surprisingly low. In fact,

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Speaker 1: according to geography professor or Jared Diamond, who's the author

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Speaker 1: of Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies,

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Speaker 1: every animal domesticated by humans, especially the major five goats,

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Speaker 1: cheap pigs, cattle, and horses, they are all exactly alike

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Speaker 1: in six important ways. First, they all eat the right diet. Second,

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Speaker 1: they have a tendency not to panic. Third, they have

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Speaker 1: a pleasant disposition. Fourth, they live within a social hierarchy.

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Speaker 1: Fifth they have a very fast growth rate, and sixth

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Speaker 1: they have the ability to breed in captivity. Now the

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Speaker 1: problem with zebras they're unpredictable, aggressive, and just downright mean.

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Speaker 1: An animal only has to fail one test to be excluded.

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Speaker 1: The zebra does so spectacularly. Zebras lack a pleasant disposition,

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Speaker 1: and in short, they're just jerks. They're unpredictably aggressive, and

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Speaker 1: they have a nasty habit of biting and not letting go.

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Speaker 1: In fact, zebras evolved to survive in Africa, where lions

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Speaker 1: are their main predator. Therefore they're aggressive. They can kill

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Speaker 1: a lion with a kick to the head. Imagine what

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Speaker 1: that kick would do to you a human. For example,

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, a herd of zebras was captured

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Speaker 1: for relocation in Zimbabwe. Sixteen animals were loaded into a

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Speaker 1: truck and driven off. When the truck arrived at its destination,

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Speaker 1: only one zebra was left alive. The others had kicked

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Speaker 1: each other to death. It's possible to train them individually,

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Speaker 1: but it's not easy. Trying to train and ride a

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Speaker 1: zebra is pretty dangerous. In fact, Rory Young, who's a

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Speaker 1: professional guide, ranger and tracker, says that while a zebra

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Speaker 1: can be trained, it's not practical or humane to do it.

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Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many efforts

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Speaker 1: were made to train zebras. This was mainly because sub

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Speaker 1: Saharan Africa is inhabited by flies that carried tripa nosamassis

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Speaker 1: or trips. Cattle and horses are susceptible to this disease

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Speaker 1: and they die, making large parts of Africa totally inaccessible

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Speaker 1: to Europeans. So it was hoped that zebras would replace them.

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Speaker 1: But to change zebras natural aggressive instincts would require harsh

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Speaker 1: and inhumane treatment. However, there are a couple examples of

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Speaker 1: humane zebra training. For instance, racehorse trainer Bill Turner trained

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Speaker 1: one Indorset, England. He rides it around his village and

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Speaker 1: a zebra, which is named Zebedee, sees everything as a predator,

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Speaker 1: so it's totally unpredictable and easily startled. But Turner has

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Speaker 1: had to use a different style of training where he

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Speaker 1: didn't chastise the animal. And there's also an American teenager

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Speaker 1: named Shaya Inman who has also trained her zebra to

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Speaker 1: be written. You can go on YouTube and look and

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Speaker 1: there's tons of videos of people riding zebras, but we

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Speaker 1: don't know how they are trained, and they're not necessarily

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Speaker 1: domesticated though, the other problem with zebras is that they're

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Speaker 1: too small to be properly saddled. Zebras are actually small

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Speaker 1: animals that haven't been bred to have strong backs that

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Speaker 1: can support cargo or riders. They could possibly be used

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Speaker 1: to pull carts, but even that is difficult based on

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Speaker 1: their own social hierarchy. Some animal trainers and breeders have

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Speaker 1: created zebra hybrids, such as the Source, a cross between

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Speaker 1: a zebra and a horse, or the Zonkey, which is

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Speaker 1: what you get when you cross a zebra and a donkey.

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Speaker 1: So far, there's no specific purpose to creating zebra hybrids,

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Speaker 1: though they're not stronger or more useful than regular horses

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Speaker 1: and donkeys. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: please visit us at how stuff works dot com