"of Asiatic wild ass or onager, ""Equus hemionus"", and three subspecies of the kiang, ""Equus kiang"", of the Himalayan upland. A male donkey (jack) can be crossed with a female horse to produce a mule. A male horse can be crossed with a female donkey to produce a hinny. Horse-donkey hybrids are almost always sterile because horses have 64 chromosomes whereas donkeys have 62, producing offspring with 63 chromosomes. Mules are much more common than hinnies. This is believed to be caused by two factors, the first being proven in cat hybrids, that when the chromosome count of the male"
"from a cross between a horse and a donkey or between a mare and a donkey, respectively. These animals are nearly always sterile due to the difference in the number of chromosomes between the two parent species. Both horses and donkeys belong to the genus ""Equus"", but ""Equus caballus"" has 64 chromosomes, while ""Equus asinus"" only has 62. A cross will produce offspring (mule or hinny) with 63 chromosomes, that will not form pairs, which means that they do not divide in a balanced manner during meiosis. In the wild, the horses and donkeys ignore each other and do not"
"to the action of imprinted genes."" A male hinny is properly called a ""horse hinny"", and a female hinny is properly called a ""mare hinny"", though in British English both female hinnies and female donkeys are sometimes called ""jennets"". Hinnies are difficult to obtain because of the differences in the number of chromosomes of the horse and the donkey. A donkey has 62 chromosomes, whereas a horse has 64. Hinnies, being hybrids of those two species, have 63 chromosomes and are sterile. The uneven number of chromosomes results in an incomplete reproductive system. According to the ADMS: ""The equine hybrid"
"are usually wild animals but when they are raised with other domestic horses they are tame enough to be ridden draught. Mules are smaller, more resistant to heat and exhaustion and much stronger. Horses are much larger but likely to suffer from exhaustion and heat. Male mules (johns) are sterile, but fertile female mules (mollies) sometimes occur. The different number and different structure in chromosomes makes it difficult for them to pair up. Donkeys have 62 chromosomes, horses have 64 so their hybrids (mules and hinnies) have 63. Zebras have between 32 and 46 (depending on species) and their hybrids"
"Donkey The donkey or ass (""Equus africanus asinus"") is a domesticated member of the horse family, Equidae. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African wild ass, ""E. africanus"". The donkey has been used as a working animal for at least 5000 years. There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world, mostly in underdeveloped countries, where they are used principally as draught or pack animals. Working donkeys are often associated with those living at or below subsistence levels. Small numbers of donkeys are kept for breeding or as pets in developed countries. A male donkey or ass"
"is called a jack, a female a jenny or jennet; a young donkey is a foal. Jack donkeys are often used to mate with female horses to produce mules; the biological ""reciprocal"" of a mule, from a stallion and jenny as its parents instead, is called a hinny. Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC, probably in Egypt or Mesopotamia, and have spread around the world. They continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass is an endangered species. As beasts of burden and companions, asses and donkeys"
"Zebroid A zebroid is the offspring of any cross between a zebra and any other equine: essentially, a zebra hybrid. In most cases, the sire is a zebra stallion. Offspring of a donkey sire and zebra dam, called a zebra hinny, or donkra, and offspring of a male horse and a female zebra called a hebra do exist, but are rare and are usually sterile and infertile. Zebroids have been bred since the 19th century. Charles Darwin noted several zebra hybrids in his works. Zebroid is the term generally used for all zebra hybrids. The different hybrids are generally named"
"from Daubenton's comparative anatomy of the horse and the donkey that species might ""transform"", but initially (1753) rejected the possibility. However, in doing so he changed the definition of a species from a fixed or universal class (which could not change, by definition) to ""the historical succession of ancestor and descendant linked by material connection through generation"", identified by the ability to mate and produce fertile offspring. Thus the horse and donkey, which produce only sterile hybrids, are seen empirically not to be the same species, even though they have similar anatomy. That empirical fact leaves open the possibility of"
"Baudet de Poitou and the Mammoth Jack are raised only for mule production. The hybrid between a stallion and a jenny is a hinny, and is less common. Like other inter-species hybrids, mules and hinnies are usually sterile. Donkeys can also breed with zebras in which the offspring is called a zonkey (among other names). Donkeys have a notorious reputation for stubbornness, but this has been attributed to a much stronger sense of self-preservation than exhibited by horses. Likely based on a stronger prey instinct and a weaker connection with humans, it is considerably more difficult to force or frighten"
"to be an ancestor of the domestic horse, though the two can hybridize and produce fertile offspring. The split between Przewalskii's horse and ""E. ferus caballus"" is estimated to have occurred 120,000– 240,000 years ago, long before domestication. Of the caballine equines of ""E. ferus,"" ""E. f. ferus,"" also known as the European wild horse or ""tarpan"", shares ancestry with the modern domestic horse. In addition, tarpans that lived into modern times may have been hybridized with domestic horses. Archaeological, biogeographical, and linguistic evidence suggests that the donkey was first domesticated by nomadic pastoral people in North Africa over 5,000"
"a female horse. With rare exceptions, these hybrids are sterile and cannot reproduce. A related hybrid, a hinny, is a cross between a male horse and a female donkey. Other hybrids include the zorse, a cross between a zebra and a horse and a zonkey or zedonk, a hybrid of a zebra and a donkey. In areas where Grévy's zebras are sympatric with plains zebras, fertile hybrids do occur. Equines have significant differences in size, though all are characterized by long heads and necks. Their slender legs support their weight on one digit (which evolved from the middle digits). Grévy's"
"Horse The horse (""Equus ferus caballus"") is one of two extant subspecies of ""Equus ferus"". It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, ""Eohippus"", into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies ""caballus"" are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term"
"with other donkeys over the wide spaces of the desert. Donkeys have large ears, which may pick up more distant sounds, and may help cool the donkey's blood. Donkeys can defend themselves by biting, striking with the front hooves or kicking with the hind legs. A jenny is normally pregnant for about 12 months, though the gestation period varies from 11 to 14 months, and usually gives birth to a single foal. Births of twins are rare, though less so than in horses. About 1.7 percent of donkey pregnancies result in twins; both foals survive in about 14 percent of"
"on 1, 2p, 2q, 5, 7–10, 12, 16, and Y as well. Some older references include Y as a match between gorillas, chimps, and humans, but chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans have recently been found to share a large transposition from chromosome 1 to Y not found in other apes. This degree of chromosomal similarity is roughly equivalent to that found in equines. Interfertility of horses and donkeys is common, although sterility of the offspring (mules) is nearly universal (with only around 60 exceptions recorded in equine history). Similar complexities and prevalent sterility pertain to horse–zebra hybrids, or zorses, whose chromosomal"
"Horse breeding Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in domesticated horses. Furthermore, modern breeding management and technologies can increase the rate of conception, a healthy pregnancy, and successful foaling. The male parent of a horse, a stallion, is commonly known as the ""sire"" and the female parent, the mare, is called the ""dam"". Both are genetically important, as each parent provides half of the genetic makeup of the ensuing offspring, called a foal."
"phenotypes of the hinny and the mule are partly attributable to genomic imprinting—an element of epigenetic inheritance. Physiological arguments for the differing stature of the hinny and the mule cite the smaller womb of the female donkey (dam) versus the larger womb of the female horse (mare). Growth potential of equine offspring may be influenced by the size of the dam's womb. The American Donkey and Mule Society (ADMS) appears to interpret these differences as wholly physiological, stating: ""The genetic inheritance of the hinny is exactly the same as the mule."" Be that as it may, the ""epigenetic"" inheritance of"
"the hinny is not the same as the mule, as ""the differences between the mule and the hinny are now known to be caused by genomic imprinting, whereby the expression of a gene is determined by its origin rather than its DNA sequence."" Like mules, hinnies express broad variation in stature. This is because donkeys come in many sizes, from miniatures, as small as at the withers, to American mammoth donkeys that may be over at the withers. Thus, a hinny is restricted to being about the size of the largest breed of donkey. Mules, however, have a female horse"
"instead of the ass; at the end, Zhirinovsky beat Proshka with a whip, made the ass move and had a ride on him through the snow-covered backyard of his dacha. International organisations People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and World Animal Protection have accused Zhirinovsky of cruelty to animals. Zhirinovsky replied to the assertions by stating that similar treatment is commonplace in the Arab world and claimed that his ass has been treated ""better than many people"". Donkey The donkey or ass (""Equus africanus asinus"") is a domesticated member of the horse family, Equidae. The wild ancestor of"
"zebrinny, or zebret. Like most other animal hybrids, the zorse is sterile. A zony is the offspring of a zebra stallion and a pony mare. Medium-sized pony mares are preferred to produce riding zonies, but zebras have been crossed with smaller pony breeds such as the Shetland, resulting in so-called ""Zetlands"". A cross between a zebra and a donkey is known by many terms, including: zonkey, zebonkey, zebronkey, zebrinny, zebrula, zebrass, zedonk, and zebadonk. Donkeys are closely related to zebras and both animals belong to the horse family. These zebra donkey hybrids are very rare. In South Africa, they occur"
"species using the same method for producing Dolly was reported in January 2018. Two identical clones of a macaque monkey, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, were created by researchers in China and were born in late 2017. Dolly (sheep) Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. Dolly was cloned by Keith Campbell, Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute, part of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics, based near Edinburgh. The funding"
"generally too valuable not to be eventually rounded up and recovered in closely settled regions. Horses and donkeys, domesticated about 5000 BC, are feral in open grasslands worldwide. In Portugal, feral horses are called Sorraia; in Australia, they are called Brumbies; in the American west, they are called mustangs. Other isolated feral populations exist, including the Chincoteague Pony and the Banker horse. They are often referred to as ""wild horses,"" but this is a misnomer. There are truly ""wild"" horses that have never been domesticated, most notably Przewalski's horse. While the horse was originally indigenous to North America, the wild"
"Mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes, a mixture of the horse's 64 and the donkey's 62. The different structure and number usually prevents the chromosomes from pairing up properly and creating successful embryos, rendering most mules infertile. There are no recorded cases of fertile mule stallions. A few mare mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or donkey. Herodotus gives an account of such an event as an ill omen of Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 BC: ""There happened also a portent of another kind while he was still at Sardis,—a mule brought forth young and"
"Mare A mare is an adult female horse or other equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four years old. The word can also be used for other female equine animals, particularly mules and zebras, but a female donkey is usually called a ""jenny"". A broodmare is a mare used for breeding. A horse's female parent is known as its dam. An uncastrated adult male horse is called"
"Evolution of the horse The evolution of the horse, a mammal of the family Equidae, occurred over a geologic time scale of 50 million years, transforming the small, dog-sized, forest-dwelling ""Eohippus"" into the modern horse. Paleozoologists have been able to piece together a more complete outline of the evolutionary lineage of the modern horse than of any other animal. Much of this evolution took place in North America, where horses originated but became extinct about 10,000 years ago. The horse belongs to the order Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), the members of which all share hooved feet and an odd number of"
"the foal was indeed her offspring. A 1939 article in the ""Journal of Heredity"" describes two offspring of a fertile mare mule named ""Old Bec"", which was owned at the time by the A&M College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) in the late 1920s. One of the foals was a female, sired by a jack. Unlike its mother, it was sterile. The other, sired by a five-gaited Saddlebred stallion, exhibited no characteristics of any donkey. That horse, a stallion, was bred to several mares, which gave birth to live foals that showed no characteristics of the donkey. In the"
"Dosanko The , also known as the and , is one of the eight extant indigenous horse breeds of Japan, and the only one of the eight not critically endangered. It originated on the island of Hokkaido, in the far north of the country, and is found particularly along the Pacific (eastern) coast of the island. The people of Hokkaido may be nicknamed ""Dosanko"" after the horses. The Dosanko is thought to derive from horses brought to the island from the Tōhoku region of north-eastern Honshu in the late Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and abandoned there. Total numbers of the breed"
"white. Onagers are larger than donkeys at about in size and in head-body length. Male onagers are usually larger than females. The genus ""Equus"", which includes all extant equines, is believed to have evolved from ""Dinohippus"" via the intermediate form ""Plesippus"". One of the oldest species is ""Equus simplicidens"", described as zebra-like with a donkey-shaped head. The oldest fossil to date is about 3.5 million years old from Idaho, USA. The genus appears to have spread quickly into the Old World, with the similarly aged ""Equus livenzovensis"" documented from western Europe and Russia. Molecular phylogenies indicate the most recent common"
"horses of the ""Tajik,"" that is, of the Arabs, were said to have been born of the conjunction of dragons with mares on the shores of the ""Western Sea."" (Schafer 1963:60) The Chinese ""longma"" ""dragon horse"" is not culture specific. Mythological hybrid animals or chimeras are known worldwide, including combinations of dragons and horses. In Greek mythology, the Hippocamp or Hippocampus (lit. ""horse sea-monster""), which supposedly has the head and front legs of a horse and the hindquarters of a dragon or fish, parallels the ""longma"" (Carr 1990:154). In Babylonian mythology, ""dragon-horse"" is a title of the goddess Tiamat (Massey"
"correlated these prehistoric remains to any modern breed. What has been studied are Y-chromosomes (Y-DNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) obtained from Exmoor ponies. The Y-chromosome is passed on through the male line, and worldwide shows very little genetic variation in horses, except for a second Y-chromosome haplotype found in China, suggesting that a very limited number of stallions contributed to the original genome of the domestic horse. The Exmoor pony shares this general Y-chromosome haplotype. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA is passed on though the female line, and shows far more variation than Y-DNA, indicating that a large number of wild"
"elephants and manatees. The domestic horse and the donkey play an important role in human history particularly as transport, work and pack animals. The domestication of both species began several millennia B.C. Due to the motorisation of agriculture and the spread of automobile traffic, such use has declined sharply in Western industrial countries; riding is usually undertaken more as a hobby or sport. In less developed regions of the world, the traditional uses for these animals are, however, still widespread. To a lesser extent, horses and donkeys are also kept for their meat and their milk. In contrast, the existence"
"Onager The onager (; ""Equus hemionus""), also known as hemione or Asiatic wild ass, is a species of the family Equidae (horse family) native to Asia. A member of the subgenus ""Asinus"", the onager was described and given its binomial name by German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in 1775. Five subspecies have been recognized, one of which is extinct. The Asiatic wild ass is larger than the African wild ass at about and (head-body length). They are reddish-brown or yellowish-brown in color and have broad dorsal stripe on the middle of the back. Unlike most horses and donkeys, onagers have"
"lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep significantly more than adults. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years. Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited ""hot bloods"" with speed and endurance; ""cold bloods"", such as draft horses and some"
"and kiang), followed by the African zebras (subgenera ""E. (Dolichohippus)"", and ""E. (Hippotigris)""). All other modern forms including the domesticated horse (and many fossil Pliocene and Pleistocene forms) belong to the subgenus ""E. (Equus)"" which diverged ~4.8 (3.2–6.5) million years ago. The ancestors of the modern donkey are the Nubian and Somalian subspecies of African wild ass. By the end of the fourth millennium BC, the donkey had spread to Southwest Asia, and the main breeding center had shifted to Mesopotamia by 1800 BC. The breeding of large, white riding asses made Damascus famous, while Syrian breeders developed at least"