Zebra black and white at birth. Plains and mountain zebra foals are protected by their mothers, as well as the head stallion and the other mares in their group. Grévy's zebra foals have only their mother as a regular protector, since, as noted above, Grévy's zebra groups often disband after a few months. Attempts have been made to train zebras for riding, since they have better resistance than horses to African diseases. While occasionally successful, most of these attempts failed due to the zebra's more unpredictable nature and tendency to panic under stress. For this reason, zebra-mules or zebroids (crosses between
Mountain zebra Mountain zebra The mountain zebra ("Equus zebra") is a species in the family Equidae. It is native to south-western Angola, Namibia, and South Africa. The mountain zebra comprises two subspecies: In 2004, C. P. Groves and C. H. Bell investigated the taxonomy of the zebras (genus "Equus", subgenus "Hippotigris"). They concluded that the mountain zebra ("Equus zebra zebra") and Hartmann's mountain zebra ("Equus zebra hartmannea") are distinct, and suggested that the two would be better classified as separate species, "Equus zebra" and "Equus hartmannae". However, in a sexual genetic study that included 295 mountain zebra specimens, Moodley and Harley (2005)