But not just any old zebra – this is a female Burchall’s Zebra and her foal and not to be confused with Mountain Zebra that are to be found on the other side of the Etosha Park. The Mountain Zebra are distinguished by stripes all the way down their legs to the hooves and have white underbellies.
Note the long legs of the foal – this is so that if danger threatens the foal can hide its body behind the mother.
Zebra stripes are unique to each animal like our thumbprints and the markings are different on either side of the body. When a foal is born the mother will take it away from the herd for a couple of months so that it can learn her stripe pattern and smell and vice versa.
Zebra have the best eyesight of all the game herd animals but poor hearing so it is not unusual to find zebra and wildebeest or impale together since the latter have good sense of smell and hearing so that the game support each other against predators.
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