Back from the brink (part two)

In the past few months I have been extremely fortunate to see Cape Mountain Zebra several times.

Many people think a zebra is a zebra is a zebra, but this is not true at all. The Mountain Zebra differs considerably from the Plains Zebra which is commonly seen in many parts of Africa.

As you can see in this photo the Mountain Zebra have a distinct dewlap on their throat. Not only are their black stripes narrower and more numerous but they lack the faint shadow stripe seen in Plain’s Zebra and have only clear black and white stripes. The black stripes do not continue beneath the belly, as they do in the Plains Zebra and the stripes above the tail are arranged in a horizontal grid-iron pattern. Their ears are longer and their bodies are smaller.

The Cape Mountain Zebra was almost extinct in 1930’s and in 1937 the Mountain Zebra National Park was established in order to protect them. From a nucleus of 7 stallions and 7 mares this population has grown to the point where animals have been successfully translocated elsewhere in The Cape.