A Horse is a zorse, of course!

This week as I covered the story of Larry Moyer's slain zebra, Randi, he confided to me that he and his wife, Diane, were planning to use the 12-year-old stallion to breed with horses and donkeys to create the hybrid breeds of zorses and zonkeys. When I looked the two terms up online I was suprised to see that many hobbyists are turning to hybrid breeds with interesting results.

Ever hear of ligers or tigons? Napoleon Dynamite wasn't the creator of these seemingly mythological creatures that display the characteristics of both the lion and tiger species. There are camas, a cross between the camel and llama and the grolar or pizzly bear, a cross of a grizzly and polar bear. There's even a wholphin a product of the union of a bottlenosed dolphin and a false killer whale.

A zonkey, a cross between a zebra stallion and a donkey, is an interesting looking character with the body and head coloring resembling its mother with striped stockings on its legs from dad. The zorse is a cross between the zebra stallion and a horse. It's coat follows the coloring of the mare but has ribbons of stripe patterns running through, giving it a tatooed, awesome appearance.

Prized in the United States for their unique appearance, zonkeys are more common in South Africa where zebras and donkeys are found in proximity to one another. Some game farmers raise zonkeys for canned animal hunters, claiming the zebra is made slower by cross-breeding thus making it an easier target for hunters looking for an unusual trophy.