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 body is striped except for the belly. In the Cape mountain zebra, the ground colour is effectively white, but the ground colour in Hartmann's zebra is slightly buff. Adult mountain zebras have a head-and-body length of and a tail of long. Wither height ranges from . They weigh from . Groves and Bell found that Cape mountain zebras exhibit sexual dimorphism, females being larger than males, whereas Hartmann's mountain zebras do not. Hartmann's zebra is on average slightly larger than the Cape mountain zebra. Mountain zebras are found on mountain slopes, open grasslands, woodlands, and areas with sufficient vegetation, but