Life's Great Mysteries... Why aren’t people riding zebras the way they ride horses?

I haven’t ridden very many horses, and I’ve never owned a horse. But… if I could ride a domesticated zebra, I might consider becoming a cowboy. In fact, in the second book of my Peregrine Outpost series, a leader of the bad guys rides a zebra, which gives him a certain lofty status among his tribe members. Seriously, how cool would it be to ride a zebra? The only place I wouldn’t ride my zebra would be on the plains of the Serengeti. Because riding one there would be like offering the lions a double-layer snack.

So, why haven’t people domesticated zebras? Humans originated in the land of zebras—it’s not like our ancestors didn’t have plenty of time to make this goal a priority. Zebra-riding seems like a no-brainer, so why didn’t they do it?

As it turns out, plenty of people have tried. In fact, the 2005 movie Racing Stripes, one of those talking-animal movies, is about a zebra that wants to be a racehorse. But even in this movie, the producers had to use a horse (in zebra makeup) for the actual riding and racing scenes. Why?

Horses, donkeys, and zebras all came from a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago in North America and Europe. As you probably know, the ones in North America went extinct about 10,000 years ago (there aren’t really any wild horses in North America today, just feral horses that escaped from herds of domestic horses brought over from Europe). Donkeys and zebras are more closely related to each other than to horses. Horses were domesticated in western Eurasia, and they were first kept as food animals, then eventually people figured out they could ride them. Thusly, they became an important element of the development of human civilization.

Horses, donkeys, and zebras were all preyed upon by large predators, but zebras lived amidst a wide variety of the world’s most impressive predators. To survive, they evolved to be particularly alert, to flee at any sign of danger, and—perhaps most importantly—to fight desperately when captured. I’ve seen videos in which zebras kick pursuing lions, breaking the lions’ jaws (a lion with a broken jaw will soon starve). Also, zebras bite viciously when they feel threatened. In 2013, a zebra at the National Zoo in Washington DC attacked and repeatedly bit a zoo keeper, sending the keeper to the hospital for surgery. Zebras also have a strong “ducking reflex” to escape attack, making it difficult to lasso them.

Basically, zebras are just not people friendly. In order for an animal species to be a good candidate for domestication, the animal should be naturally fond of humans, and it helps if the animal has a desire for a comfortable life and is easy to work with and tend. Horses, yes. Zebras, nope.

Okay, remember above when I said I would not ride my theoretical zebra across the Serengeti? I wasn’t kidding. It’s likely that thousands of generations of early humans avoided even trying to domesticate zebras, knowing that zebras were basically lion fodder. This, and the zebra’s belligerent behavior, explain why zebras have never been domesticated, and why I’ll never be a zebra-riding cowboy.

Photo Credits:
- Zebra - DepositPhotos