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
Zebra mbuna actions scrape off the loose aufwuchs which it then ingests. The zebra mbuna is a maternal mouth brooding cichlid. The female broods the eggs and early stage young in her mouth for 18 to 24 days. During this time she is unable to feed and she loses weight. When mature enough, the fry are expelled into the open water and quickly find natural shelter in which to hide. A study by Pierottia et al. (2008) investigated whether the colour morph of the female influenced the male's choice of mate. It was found that the male's preference in mate colouring was