You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Angie and I have been doing the All Creatures Podcast for eight years and over that time, I've come to listen, obviously, and... Become a podcast fanatic like you. And obviously in most of our podcast feeds, we have multiple podcasts that.
we download and listen to each week. And here's one I suggest you add to your podcast stream, and that is Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. The hosts are making sense of some of the biggest questions and ideas shaping our world. As a scientist... I'm obviously curious about many things. And outside the All Creatures podcast, I love when I can learn from other scientists about the world around us.
And that is why I love Curiosity Weekly, because they're exploring some of the other areas that I don't have time to research. You know, things like food science. You know, how does beer and wine ferment? Sleep science. That's something that we should all be interested in. How do we get a good night's sleep? What are sleep scientists doing? Studying things like ASMR?
you know, how people's brains are responding and how it helps insomniacs. And then things like computer science. I am a biologist. I understand cellular biology to the whole animal. I have no idea how computers work or even my cell phones that are so powerful that we all carry. So these are things that Curiosity Weekly from Discovery are exploring each and every week. I highly suggest you add it. to your feed. And again, you can listen to Curiosity Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.
I believe art is the most significant development in human history. It is our means of communication. It is both how and why we got out of the trees. And Who Arted is a podcast dedicated to celebrating art in art. So follow Who Arted on your favorite podcast app. That's Who Arted Weekly Art History for All Ages. Over 7 million different animals inhabit our planet. One of our favorites, one of my top five for sure. All-time species. I love these small and wild ass.
What can they teach us? Eastern Africa, where it's very hot, desert climate, hilly, stony desert, arid, semi-arid bushland, grasslands. I mean, not where you'd want to really live if you're an ungulate that likes to eat grass. Many species are in crisis and need your help. Join the movement at allcreaturespod.com. Welcome to All Creatures Podcast. This is Chris. And I'm Angie. Angie, we are starting year two. Here it goes. I can't believe they haven't kicked us off the air yet.
I mean, it is kind of a free media source, but still, the fact that a few people, including our parents, are still downloading it. Once a week. Yeah. I'll take that for a win. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, mom. And my brother, my brother's even listened. My sister, maybe. But yeah, we made it to year two. We've got, we did. I think the episode count was over seven. for year one. That's amazing. Yeah, we got a lot done in the past year and a lot of...
learning, not just about different species. Oh, huge growth curve. Yes. I don't think I could go back and listen to some of our first episodes. Oh, no. I want to take them down because I don't want someone to start there. We should have started this year off by redoing Elephant and Rhino and a few other ones. Yes, yes, yes. I think we started to hit our groove around Poison Dart Frogs. I like that episode. It's still one of my favorites to this day.
But yeah, no, I know. It's definitely a learning curve. And I guess hopefully we'll just keep getting better in year two, right? Yes, of course. I think so. I hope so. Fingers crossed. And I don't know about you, but I feel charged up more than ever as far as species that I want to cover in this next year. Absolutely. This whole journey that you and I are on. are on the people we've met through other podcasts, through interviews, through.
Our listeners, our audience that will write to us and make suggestions and have worked with us. I just feel really charged up that there's so many more species out there that need our attention. And hopefully. We'll form this community between obviously the podcast, but then the people that are fighting for these animals on the ground in zoological institutions, out in the wild, in the political realm.
or even through other podcasts and this community can kind of band together and we can help educate one another because it seems to be obviously a lot of our followers are animal lovers and animal and conservationists by nature. And so, which is awesome. Right. But our goal is to spread the message beyond.
to other people that maybe aren't as natural or aren't naturalist or maybe aren't as engaged or aren't aware of what's going on right like yeah yeah no absolutely some of these species we covered a saula a pangolin like what are these guys a vaquita. Uh, and so the goal is to charge into this next year and to really hopefully, um, make, make some waves. No, I, I, I agree. And it's like, you know, I just, God, I think the one thing I take.
from the last year is, and I've said this before, just the amount of people out there that are fighting for these animals each and every day. That is what... Exactly. Every species we've covered, there's somebody out there doing research on them. There's somebody out there fighting for them. You know, I always go back to Niaga Leonard with the Catball Langer. I mean, 60 of them left on Earth.
He's out there, the face of it, fighting for them with his organization on Catbot Island. You know, Kim Getz is out on the ocean studying blue whales. On a big boat, yeah. Yeah. The Peregrine Fund, we've had a couple of their researchers on. And then even what Corbin Maxey's doing as far as the entertainment side.
of things and bringing awareness that way. So education, yeah, there's, it's been a great year and it's going to be a great year too and beyond. Well, that's the thing is I think with some of the, the stories that are. potentially heartbreaking or maybe a little bit more doom and gloom, there's always stories of hope. And I think of the interview with Dr. Barney Long and the Saula and the Sumatran Rhino.
just really showcase what is being done on a global, international, day-to-day effort for these species. I just hope we can keep highlighting that and getting people motivated to fight this good fight and connected with the resources of the people that are doing that and also educating one another that may not be aware. that not all rhinos are created equal. And a lot of times...
In the media, the Asian rhinos get forgotten about. And of course, African ones are having a world of trouble as well. So it's stuff like that that hopefully we can help bring our audience and then share it to other people and get everybody excited about. animals and as passionate as we are about preserving biodiversity while we still can't. We might be in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, but there's still work to be done to help prevent it.
Right, right. And it starts with not just what you and I are doing, but the listeners and sharing this information. So please, please share the podcast, you know, with anybody that likes animals. Please, you guys and gals have been... Incredible. Just this past week, Angie and I got incredible kudos from a blog, the top 10 zoology podcast. We were in there. I was excited. Yeah, that was really great.
Oh, Chris, yes, it was definitely made a lot of our endeavors feel like they paid off and that people are listening and engaging and that we're... That we're doing the right thing, that we're on the right path, and that people like us, and that we still deserve to be on the air a year later. We'll try. We'll keep trying. We're never going to give up. We're never going to give up. Or there just really aren't that many animal podcasts. Either way, I'll take it.
Yeah, we're up there. So anyways, this week, the Somali wild ass, it's one that's near and dear to Angie and I's hearts. There's a lot of reasons that we chose this species to kind of launch year two. I mean, we should have done it earlier, but I'm kind of glad we waited on it. And we're going to get into it a little bit, you know, on why we chose them.
One of the reasons we chose them is drum roll. My first solo author is been released and you can get it on Amazon. So the handbook of horses and donkeys. Yay. Awesome, Chris. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. That is amazing. You're like in the big league. Big time book author. That's huge, buddy. I can say I'm an author now. It's like not of late. I know. I'm a podcaster. I was a professor. Now I'm an author.
Yeah, that's so exciting. And Angie had a big help in that. She's actually in the book and pictures. Some of her behavior work that she did for her master's work. Yes. Official proofreader over here. I'll proofread your work anytime, buddy. It was very helpful. It was very helpful. So Angie's free copy is on the way in the mail. She'll get it any day now. It took me about two years to... It was worth every penny. It took me about two years to research and write it.
It got published by 5M out of the UK. Phenomenal publishing company. The books that they produce are just beautiful. The pictures are beautiful. If you're into horses, it's a good book. Actually, some of the stuff I covered today, I covered in the book. you know because it's it's not just horses i mean i definitely covered donkeys in there and then some of the other wild equids like zebras and the wild asses which we're covering today so it's uh
I love it. It's a great book. I'm glad. I'm excited it was out there. It sold out on Amazon day one, which made me really feel good. All five copies. I don't know how many they had. That's awesome. All five copies, right? My mom bought them all. Sold out. Right, right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyways. Well, yeah, no, and that's the great news about this podcast is today Chris is the expert. Yeah, well, yeah, to an extent. Now, okay, so Molly Wildass, Angie got me down this path.
This started years ago when she came to my life. Should we date ourselves, Chris? It was about 10 years ago. This would be... Circa, this would be circa 2010. Okay, eight years ago, eight years ago. Angie shows up in my office, wants to go to grad school, and she's a phenomenal graduate student, obviously.
The Angie started pushing me. She's like, you really need to start working with endangered species and exotic animals. And at the time I was just focused on horses and doing some cow work. It was really Angie. I think I saw your elephant. I think I saw your elephant tattoo on your cat. And I was like, he, I mean, he must like wildlife. Yes. That's not, it's not a small tattoo. So I like. It's not.
This guy has got to like wildlife. How can I turn him into being more of a wildlife junkie? And you did. You did. And Angie took me up to a conservation center in Florida. where they had Somali wild asses. And I didn't know anything about them. But Angie's like, these are the most endangered equids on the planet. And I was like, oh, really? And I didn't really know a lot about them at the time. Went out, saw them.
gorgeous just gorgeous in fact i think if i remember the story correctly you weren't feeling well that day and you almost didn't go i'm glad i did That's all I'm saying is I'm glad I did because. And I think I remember saying it was John and I, because John was also. going with us at the time and i mean he was the one that spurred the whole thing and and i was like no no you gotta go this is like our one ticket to get in this this amazing conservation center it's hard to get
It's hard to get guest passes in there. And you're going to want to meet these people. We want to meet these people. And yeah, you took your cough medicine or whatever it was. And, and then, and you got on the bus. It was amazing. It's one of my favorites places on earth. They do a lot of amazing work. And we saw, it was about, it was at nine females or 10 females that were pregnant at the time, I think, or they were trying to get them pregnant. And.
Yeah, long story short, Angie and I actually, and a lot of this was, again, Angie, and she's going to cover this in behavior. Angie spurred a behavior study with them. Right. We did it with some training with some of the zoo students and we did a, a, just a basic behavior study with, with the Somali wild ask gravy, zebra and horses comparing natural behaviors, which is really cool.
A little bit boring, I will say, watching them eat all day. None of that, Chris. There's nothing more Zen peaceful than watching an ungulate. Eat grass. All day. For 16 hours a day. All day. That's all they do. And then when they do the cool behaviors, that's when you're not supposed to make your observation. Anyways.
It still was amazing. It was an amazing experience. I actually did it a couple days by myself. You know, it's just, yeah, it was really great. So, again, we have a lot of love for these animals. And you want to stay tuned because at the end, I'm going to ask the audience, think about this. Okay. Can a horse carry a zebra baby to term fetus or a donkey fetus to term?
They are not the same species, right? They're not subspecies. They're all individual species. They're the same genus, Equus, but they are different. So is it possible to put a zebra embryo... in a horse and have it carried a term? I don't know. We'll find out at the end. Angie might know the answer. That's right.
Yes, it was definitely some questions we talked about a lot when I first met you and some research interests that we had, that's for sure. Yes, for sure. If I had all the money in the world, that's where I would be. So I will definitely stay tuned and we can quiz me and see what I remember from...
Our masters. Okay. My masters work. All right. So the African wild ass, we're going to get a little bit into it. The Somali wild ass is one of the subspecies. The other two are extinct and I'll get there, but. Very unique. These are the original donkeys. These are where donkeys came from, from these original wild asses in Africa. So they look like a donkey.
Sharp differences. It depends on the breed of donkey. Like we think of little burrows in Southwest United States. Those are smaller, mini donkeys. These are about the size of a zebra, right? Small and wild ass about the size of a zebra. Plain zebra? Yes. About the size, right? So from a donkey perspective, I feel like they're big. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the mammoth jack is huge. That's like horse size.
But for most donkeys, they're above average, I would say, in size. And there are some bigger ones out there. Large gray top coat along the midline. They're white underneath. What I love about the Somalis... is they have the black striping on the lakes, the zebra striping. Yes, that's where I fell in love, right? Anything that reminds me, anything that hints close to being a zebra, like an okapi or a Somali wild animal.
Yes. Sign me up. That is for sure. They have gorgeous horizontal stripes on their legs. And, and then of course, yeah, they have, I just love their gray top coat and their white belly and, and they do their body. Their body shape in general does remind me of more of a equid of like a horse and less like a burrow, if you will. And yeah, they had these long, narrow hooves.
And this is a unique design that allows the animal to be swift and sure-footed in a rough, rocky, dry habitat. Right. And, you know, they're... They're pretty big. I mean, you know, almost five feet at the shoulder, you know, where we measure them. And six, maybe 700 pounds depends, you know, where they're at. Probably in the wild, they're a little bit thinner than I think they would be in captivity, which I will get to later on why.
because I thought that was interesting when I learned about horses and donkeys. Now, what's really cool too about the Spawn Wild Ass or the African Wild Ass is they don't have a dorsal stripe down the back or the backbone. Right. Wrong spine. You see dorsal stripes on a lot of donkey breeds. That is from the Nubian wild ass. So the Nubian wild ass has the dorsal stripe, but not the leg striping.
So in our domestic donkeys, anytime people don't recognize this or realize this, when you look at a domestic donkey, look at their legs and see if you can see some of that zebra striping. And I bet they have a dorsal stripe down the back. because of all the interbreeding with the African wild ass that got domesticated 5,000, 6,000 years ago, and the Somali and the Nubian, and there was the Atlas wild ass too, which I'll get to. Now, the Somali wild ass...
Duh, you would think Somalia, right? I mean, that's where they got their name. Right. That would be the general consensus, right? but they're no longer there, right? Or maybe there's a small pocket there. Yeah. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Because Somalia, as most people know, has been... in conflict for decades, decades. And so a lot of these animals were hunted for food or even.
you know captured or accidentally bred by a domestic donkey things that we'll get to in conservation so today of the 200 maybe 300 left in the world outside of human care are in Eritrea and Ethiopia and no longer are found in Sudan or Somalia. And... If you're not familiar with these regions in Africa, this is going to be in northeastern Africa and where it's very hot, desert climate, hilly, stony desert, arid, semi-arid bushland grasslands.
I mean, not where you'd want to really live if you're an ungulate that likes to eat grass, but these guys have survived over... Millions. Hundreds of thousands of years. And have been able to... and have been able to adapt to this harsh climate, which we'll talk about a lot in their physiological adaption. So stay tuned for that. But it is, it is very, it's very dry, dusty.
type area not not the light lush green plains of africa that you think of often when you're thinking of central africa now the other equid that lives just a little bit further south right just north of kenya is your ultimate. My baby. My baby that will probably wait until year three and do the first episode of year three. Yeah, my baby, baby, baby, the Grevy Zebra.
I think we'll get to the grubby before the end of the year. There's three species of zebra, and the grubbies is the largest and the most endangered, and they live in the most north of Africa and Kenya. And they used to live in the desert region. Yeah. Yeah. More of the desert. And they're also endangered with only about, I don't think about 2000 or so. Yeah. 2000. Yeah. Less. Yeah.
They're gorgeous. I worked with Hogan and Bobby and Delry and Adia. Yeah, they're good. They're beautiful. They're beautiful. So, you know, why care about the Somali wild ass besides me and Angie loving them? Just real quick, because you do a really good job on this, Angie. I think, for me, why, you know, not only...
They have their ecological niche that they need to fill their desert loving. So I think we can learn a lot about that, especially with, with, as the earth gets warmer, these desert loving animals, we need to learn. how they survive. We need to study them because we may have to employ some of those strategies. And I think it, you know, we have just with domestic donkeys. I mean, this is it. This is the population left of.
the original original donkeys. So it will tell us a lot about human culture and domestication and learning all those processes. If we remove them, we lose that ability forever. You know, why were donkeys so good at being tamed and eventually domesticated versus a zebra? We've never domesticated zebras. I'm sure they tried. They tried at some point.
But you can't domesticate them. But donkeys, you could. So why? You know, those are questions that I have. So anyways, there's so many more reasons I would love to say, you know, why I think we need to save these specific animals, in my opinion. But what are some of the others?
Besides just looking at them, Crystal puts some show notes up. And if you're not familiar with them, which probably a lot of people aren't because they are so endangered and not everybody just thinks of a donkey as the regular domestic donkey. It's not, and not these African wild asses. Uh, but you know, I, I would actually, and of course I love ungulates and so I don't want it to go the way of the.
And Chris, for me, it's kind of a personal plea here since I guess people are still tuning in after two years is... I just don't want to see the Somali wild ass or the grubby zebra for that matter, these equids that are so highly endangered. I don't want to see them go the way of the quagga. And if you're not familiar with the quagga...
is it's basically like a horse-zebra mix almost. Or a donkey. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. And it has only recently been extinct. and not quite in my lifetime. I think it was a little bit before that, but it's such a unique species and people wanted to bring it back and they just can't. And so... Its markings are beautiful. Its history is amazing. Its decline and extinction is sad. It was probably preventable. So anyways, Chris can put some show notes.
It's easy for me to say, Chris can put show notes up for you guys to learn more about the quagga. There have definitely been equids that have gone extinct. not too long of time. And I just don't want to, we're at the cusp of, will that happen again for the Somali wild ass or won't it? And I, like Chris says, there's still so much to learn. from them. In fact, I'll let Chris, of course, cover the evolution and I'll try to...
Don't worry, team. I'll try to speed him along because I think this was probably about a hundred page chapter in his book. So I'll let him speed that along. It's fascinating stuff. Oh, are you kidding me, Chris? I mean, honestly. Evolution is amazing. And I'll tell my evolution story in a minute of why I love horse evolution. But a research study, I think just about like six or seven years ago.
and I think it was the Journal of Royal Proceedings, basically demonstrated the difference between the Nubian wild ass and the Somali wild ass in that the Nubian wild ass was more... Along the lines of what got domesticated. Am I saying that right? Whereas the Somali wild ass. Not so much. And so it really is, in my opinion, it's even extra distinct than, oh, well, whatever, who cares? We have domestic donkeys.
That would maybe be the argument for the Nubian. But for the Somali wild ass, its genes are definitely different. And I think it has, like Chris said, a potential to show us a lot about why it... it went the way that it went or didn't, it didn't get domesticated, whereas Nubian did. And so I just think it, it's, it highlights the complexity of animal domestication and basically what conservation implications.
have on these critically endangered smiling wild asses. No, it does. They are. I think the Nubians were the... the most of it and the Atlas. So that was kind of my next thing was, you know, the three species. So you have the African wild ass. Okay. So the, of the three species of African wild ass, that's Equus Africanus.
Okay, that's African wild ass. The Somali wild ass is Equus africanus somaliensis. Okay, that's the only species that's left of the three. The Nubian wild ass went extinct in about the 1990s. Right, so in our lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mention that with the quagga. Yeah. Right. In domestication, you know, especially the Nubian was up more near the coast and the Mediterranean. So a lot of donkey domestication, like into Europe.
Now, donkeys were domesticated in around Egypt and North Africa and parts of Southwest Asia or what we call the Middle East. So the Nubians would make more sense. And then probably I think some of the Somali wild ass genes got in that gene pool because we do see that leg striping. the atlas wild ass no idea they went extinct in the 1300s and that was near morocco that part of africa more of the western northwestern portion of africa okay so they went extinct a long time ago
I don't know where they are as far as within the domestication process. But yeah, I mean, it was fascinating stuff to, I talk a little bit about my book, just that. the process of domesticating horses versus donkeys. And what's interesting, it almost happened simultaneously in history. So when they were starting to domesticate horses somewhere over, I think Ukraine, Kazakhstan area, they were domesticating donkeys in Africa. So almost simultaneously. Isn't that crazy?
It is. It's really cool. It's convergent domestication. Domestication. Yes. Sorry. For all you evolutionary kind of zoology dorks, you'll get that joke. But for the rest of you, I apologize. Yes. Now evolution, right? Yeah. And we covered a little bit of this in the Przewalski horse. That was like episode four.
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It bears, I will tell you what, it does bear, it's worthy of a five minute interlude recap of Equid Evolution. And I'll tell you why. Because when I was 10 years old. In 4-H, maybe I might've only been nine. In 4-H in Michigan, we had to do, and I was in the horse program and I didn't even have a horse, but I was still allowed to be in the horse program learning about.
horse care. I probably could have used your book back then, Chris. It would have been very helpful. But for one of my 4-H projects that was to be judged, I, besides making a horse care book, I did The evolution. I hand drew. I wonder if my mom still has it. Probably not. If she's like me, she throws out her kids' artwork all the time. Sorry, kids. I take pictures of it, though, and I hang it up, but then it's got to get recycled. Anyways, so. But, yeah, I drew –
the evolution of the horse and each, it was on old computer paper. Do you remember how old, this is so 80s or 90s when it like folded back. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. When it folded back and forth on each other. So each one. was like a phase of the Equid evolution where they first looked like foxes. And I'll let you touch on that. Doggies, yeah. They looked like foxes, basically. And they were small, about the size of a fox.
Was it mesohippus, eohippus? Which one is it? Eohippus. See, look, I remember that from being nine years old. And I don't study this stuff. And so anyways, but I had to hand draw it. There's like six or seven steps and each one I had to draw up until basically, or nine steps up until the modern day horse. But it is a fascinating study.
of real time not real time obviously but as far as what the um the paleontologists have been able to find and the people that study this of evolution happening in a very grandiose way By far. The equids are the best species to look at evolution. So when, you know, people talk about evolution not being real, and I'm sorry, you know, it's...
This is not, Angie and I are just presenting the facts and I don't want to get into a debate about evolution, things like that. The, the equity, it, it proves it. I mean, it just shows. how the changes over time. And basically it's the change in foot structure and the skulls. Now the equids evolved in North and parts of South America. That's where people are like blown away.
They don't realize that horses and rhinos came from the Americas. Then about two, two and a half million years ago, they started to migrate into Asia. Now, horses... The modern horses that we have today, their ancestors, or the wild ones, went extinct in America 10,000 years ago. Okay.
So the wild horses that are running around North America today are actually, and South America, there's wild horse herds. Those were introduced by European explorers in the 1500s. So I think the reason we have such a... A good picture of them is because a lot of those bones are in our backyard here in North America, where a lot of these paleontologists are out there studying.
Now, what Angie said with Eohippus, that was the first horse-like animal lived about 56 million years ago. It had four toes on the front leg and three toes on the hind leg. Each iteration, like you said, mesohippus, and then I'm going to talk about marriage hippus, those toes start migrating up the lake. Each one of my folded back computer sheets. Yeah. On my 4-H project, which for the record, I think I did get a blue ribbon for.
Oh, okay, good. You've always been an overachiever, good job. Well, actually, as I grew older, I realized my... My drawing skills had a lot to be. Might are horrible. Yeah. I think after that, that was my last blue ribbon for drawing ever. I must have been the only one in the category. Yeah. I want a golf trophy that way. I've got a golf trophy. It's because we're the only group. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So.
Over time, we dig up these bones, and we can see these outer toes migrate up the leg. So Mary Chippus lived about 20 million years ago, and that's a three-toed horse. And those outer toes... provide some support but over time they do less and less until you get to modern equus where there's only the single hoof now the toes are remnants still in the leg of the horse they're just splint bones
They're tucked under the skin. You can't see them. Now, specifically, the African wild asses and the zebras, they split off from Equus that one branch went to become horses. the Asiatic wild asses, and then these went to become the African wild asses and the zebras. So I think that's why you see some of that leg striping. That happened about a million years ago. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, so 800,000 to a million years ago is when they migrated into Africa, and then they split off into all the different species of zebra and wild asses. Now, the Asiatic wild ass, about a million years ago, they split off. So you have the Kulong or the Keong and then the Onager are the two. And they're both, well, the Onager is endangered.
The other ones. So those are in China. Those are the Asiatic. Asiatic, right. So they are in China, Mongolia, and then some of them branch out to the Middle East. Okay. Now. Donkeys live, on average, 27 years. But this factoid, and I think I said this Przewalski horse, the oldest donkey on record, Angie, can you guess how old? Oh, man. 38 years. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're not this old yet in about 15 years.
54 years old. Oh, sweet goodness. Sweet, sweet goodness. Her name's Susie. She lived to be 54. So there's a lot of good news for you and your old mare. Oh, Rosie. I know she's 33 and a half and she, I'll send you pictures. Her body condition score. She looks like she could be. 25. I mean, 23. She looks fantastic. She's loving Florida. I don't know if she's going to be 54, 55 like Susie, the donkeys.
And a small part of me hopes not. Your pocketbook. My pocketbook. My husband hopes not. Xander does. Xander's madly in love with her. Wow, though. That's... That's longer than the oldest horse. Yeah. Yeah. The oldest horse, I think it was like 52 or 51. So it was a little bit long. Yeah. That's a long time. I love her for everyone who's listening. I love her. She's a light of my life. So.
It's just for sale. No, no, no way. But I do. I do. I always kiss her, her, her little muzzle. And I, and I always tell her I love her. Cause I'm always like, you never know. It might not be the last kiss. Oh, so, you know, 27 years for a donkey, the wild asses are probably somewhat similar, probably a little less, probably 2025, because it is a little bit harder life out there in the wild.
Now, they can run about 30 miles per hour. Pretty good. Pretty good clip. That's great. Yes, that's pretty fast. Now, so some of the physiology, before we jump into some of the fun behavior stuff, just a couple things I wanted to cover. First, okay, the difference in all the species of equids and chromosome count, because remember at the beginning I asked, can horses carry a zebra or a donkey to full term?
They don't have the same chromosome count. Angie, how many chromosomes does a horse have? Ah, let me tell you. I know the answer to that. And it took me a long time to memorize it. But. Really? Yeah, I don't know why. So I started off with humans. Humans are 23andMe is a gene company. And so we have 23 is 46. So horses, I flip it. They have 64. Okay. Okay. How many do donkeys have? Or the wild asses? Can you see me sweating? I feel like I'm still in my...
What would I have to take for my PhD? What were those called? That nightmare. Holy shnikes. Especially when I was like eight months pregnant during it. You passed. You passed. flying colors. I didn't cry. My goal was to not cry in front of you guys. I went in the bathroom and cried when you weren't looking. No, I didn't cry. Let me ask you this. How many does a mule have? Oof. Because mules are what? Can mules breed? Mules are... Mule...
Oh, my gosh. No, no. I know this. I know this. Dr. Angie. Oh, this is Stump the Chomp. Oh, this is fine. No, you're going to edit this out. Can mules breed? I know this. Like I said, the way that my brain works is I have all these little sayings and memories. And so I just have to go to that compartment of my brain and quit stalling and tell you the answers.
Mules can't breed. They're sterile. You interrupted me. I was saying that they cannot breed. It's jackasses that are not sterile. They can breed. Well, yeah, they're donkeys. Donkeys can. Okay. So mules is a cross between a horse and a donkey. Correct. Now let me. I don't know if this is going to make it because I could be here all day. This is going to like take an hour to quiz you. Okay. Is it a male donkey and a female horse or a male horse and a female donkey that you breed to get it?
It is a male horse and a female donkey. That's a henny. Oh, that's a henny? Then it's a... Female horse and a male donkey. Okay. Yeah, that's not what I said? No, you said the other one. No. Okay. Okay, fair enough. Should I stop digging holes? Okay, it is late. No, no, no, keep going. Everybody's around me like, oh my gosh, this lady is not smart. Which is fine. Are you kidding me? I mean, just because I'm a nerd at this stuff.
All right, so tell you mules have 63 chromosomes. For the record, I'm a horse zebra person, not a donkey person. Although I want a miniature donkey. Yeah, they're cute. I want a miniature donkey that wears little boots. That's what I want for Christmas, if John's listening. I'm going to make a list of this one. If a mule has 63 chromosomes, a horse has 64, mules have 63, how many should a donkey have? 62.
Yes! Yay! Thank you. Those are like mental stretches, Chris. I didn't know it was quiz time. I had to stretch out. I had to think about it. That was three years ago, Dada. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But off the record, isn't there something where when it's not the – there's something called a mule and then there's – it's an ass. Well, the ass is a donkey.
Donkeys are known as asses. Jackasses, donkeys, wild asses, it's all. But there's one way when you cross them when they're not sterile. No, hennies and mules are sterile because they don't have the chromosomes. Because they have an extra chromosome that makes them sterile. Now, there's the rare report, oh, you know, this mule, you know, we collected him and he had swimmers. Or she's ovulating in an estrus, you know, when she's a... Okay.
A Jenny mule. But those are ultra rare. And generally, they're not cycling. They're not producing viable sperm cells. Now, I don't expect you to know this one. Perzwalski horse. You have no clue. 66. Now – I just proofread the book. I didn't write it. That's right. But, I mean, think about it. So then we go back to domestication of horses and the Przewalski horse. was one of the originals. So how many does Smiley Wild Ass have? They have 62.
All asses have 62. Right. So Przewalski horses really weren't the original horses. It was the tarpon horse that went extinct 100 years ago. So those are where our domestic breeds came from. All right. Okay. Go through the others. The Onagers, they have 56 chromosomes. Now, the zebras get even more bizarre. Plain zebras have 44. I was just going to ask you, do you know how many chromosomes a Grevy zebra has without looking at your notes?
No, it's off the top of my head. It's right in front of my face. And a mountain zebra is 32. Next time you're sharing your notes with me before. Next time you're sharing your notes with me before. So it's just, when we look at this stuff, it tells you some of the history. I mean, that's where I think genetics, you know, not getting into the molecular aspects of it, but just looking at simple things like total number of chromosomes.
In a cell, we can start seeing some of these relationships. So the African wild ass and the donkey have 62. The domestic horse has 64, but the Przewalski horse has two extra chromosomes that we don't see in our horse breeds. Right. Now, I will tell you, they do believe Przewalski horses did have some breeding with domestic horses years. I don't remember hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, but they really had no lasting impact on the development of modern horse breeds. Okay.
All right. The other physiology thing. We'll get off that one. Keep going. I feel like I'm just starting to, like, warm up here. Well, it's, yeah. I mean, that's some geeky stuff. The, and I just, you know, I just remember because, you know, when I taught it a lot, the 62, the 63, the 64. If you ask me tomorrow, how many Grevy had? I was really proud of myself for, yeah, for memorizing.
It took me a while to memorize horses. I don't know why. It's just not a common number. And then, of course, Grevy's, I just love them so much. So that's why I memorized them. What about Southern White Rhinos? Do you know? I'm just kidding. I don't know either. All right. Do you know? Yeah, no, I don't know. 55, 56. I haven't bred them, Chris. 55 would make no sense. They have to be even numbers. 56, I don't know. All right. Here's my next question.
Why do donkeys and asses have such big ears? You know, what? Why? Besides being super cute, like Eeyore. Yeah. Because. They are incredible, right? They have these huge, huge ears. Yeah, it probably has something to do with them being a prey animal. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Maybe this...
Fading heat, dissipating heat. Could be. Could be, yeah. That's why African elephants have huge ears because they're being baked in the sun. Donkeys have big ears. The grevies have the dewlap, right? Bigish ears. Yeah, biggest ears. No, Grubby's Mountain. Dulap's Mountain, right? There you go. Good job. Good job. But that helps dissipate some heat. So, you know, I think one of the things they have big ears is the physics of sound, you know.
Sound in the desert carries really far. These are animals that need to communicate over far distances to locate resources, locate mates. So I think it gives them. an evolutionary distinct advantage versus a horse ear, which is much smaller compared to a donkey ear. Now. Sounds of waves, and so our ears catch the vibrations or waves and then directs them into our inner ear or, well, directs them to the eardrum.
So I thought it'd be a good little neat thing today to talk about how hearing works, you know, thinking about the donkeys. Oh, I can quiz you up and down the river on this, my friend. Let's start naming some inner ear bones. Auditory ossicles. Ready? Let's go. Let's go. I just have ossicles. There's three of them, right? There are. Do you know them? Okay. Well, you can geek out here in a second. So there's three parts of the ear. You have the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
Outer ear is the ear canal and eardrum. See, this is why you learn it, because you teach it. When you teach it, you learn it. Yes, yes. Don't tell my students that I just learned it the night before. But now you know it. Now I know it forever. Our ears are thick of a donkey, you know, telescoping those ears. They pick up those vibrations. The sound or those vibrations travel down the ear canal and they hit the eardrum.
So that's the outer ear. The middle ear is right behind the eardrum. That contains those three bones that Angie just mentioned, the ossicles. And what are the names of those three bones? one obstacle one obstacle two obstacle three so these chain of yeah that's why you're good because you know how to bs for the best of them
You have to. When students ask you tough questions, you just move on. You're like, oh, I didn't hear you. My middle ear's broken. Oh, that's funny. For the record, for all of you... at the edge of your seats, wondering what the three ear bones, your names are from the order, order of the outer ear to the inner ear is that. malleus, the incus, and the stapes. And the stapes is kind of interesting, Chris, because it looks like a stirrup, which us horse people can get behind. Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So the vibrations vibrate the ossicles, right? And then they move the fluid in the inner ear or the cochlea. which causes changes in hair cells. And then the movement of the hair cells. Which for the record is not actually hair. It's just the name hair cell. It is actually a nerve cell. Okay, nerve cell, thank you. Sends electric signals up the auditory nerve to the brain. And then the brain interprets these electric signals. I will tell you what, the brain blows me away.
How do we see and how do we hear? How do we taste? Like it just, oh, talk about nerdy science. That's been a lot of fun. That really has been a lot of fun in my anatomy and physiology class, really getting down to the. the, uh, bare bones, pardon the pun, but getting, getting down to the bottom of how that works. And of course, you and I as physio reproductive physiologists and the dabble, of course, with behavior and nutrition a lot. We don't always get to do this.
the senses per se, or a lot of, and for me, especially studying the, um, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system and how they relate to the senses is been, and of course I only know the very. minimal parts of it has been really, really interesting. And hearing is one of those that I think is, for me, it's a little bit easier to understand because it's such like a pathway. But I always point out to my students, which I think is...
fascinating about hearing is that all the different medias involved. So you have the vibrations, the sound you have, basically it's a sound wave being converted or. into a vibration that's being converted into fluid, into a fluid wave that then is being converted into an electrical signal. I mean, I'm no mechanical engineer by any long shot, but that's like mind blowing. If you think about that. Yeah. It's incredible. It is incredible. It is. It is.
So anyways, yeah, you should go on Coursera and take an anatomy and physiology class. If you want to be dorks like us, take a free one. I recommend that. But yeah, no, it really – it's super cool. Yeah. Here in maybe the next couple of pods, we can cover some of the other ones like seeing and taste. Taste is incredible as well. Oh my goodness. Wow. What I've been learning about that. Okay. We will. We will.
But anyways, back to Somali Wild Ass. So why do you have such big ears? So again, they're desert dwelling. Sound travels quite far, especially at night. You know what's bizarre is at a friend's house the other night. I'm 25 miles from, from Disneyland in Southern California. When the fireworks went off, we could hear them because the sound was bouncing off the mountains. Like.
I couldn't believe I was hearing the fireworks from Disneyland. It's like not even close. And you're like, why can't I see them though? I can hear them. Why can't I see them? Yeah, it was crazy. It was so crazy. And it's just like, especially at night, atmospheric conditions, all that stuff.
Anyways, so again, they have these large ears to communicate and listen for predators, things like that. Now, you and I have been talking forever because we got in that huge quiz. We'll cover nutrition really quick. We covered it. We covered it in Przewalski horse, non-ruminant herbivore. That means they have a single stomach. They do eat grasses, other plants that are digested in the stomach, small intestine, absorbs nutrients, and then they have this hind gut.
where they have all the microbes that can break down some more of the the plant matter to produce some energy out of that to get the final nutrients out of it so grass is what they love to eat but not a ton in the desert so they do other other things. What I think is interesting too is the difference between horses and donkeys, like especially donkeys under human care tend to be fat. I don't know if you ever noticed that. Oh yeah. Because people feed them.
People feed them like a horse and they're not. Their nutrient requirements are much lower. They don't need as much energy and as much protein. So people feed them like, oh, this is how much I give my horse. This is how much I should give my donkey. When they actually, their nutrient requirements are much less. So get my book if you really want to know. Yes. Even if you don't want to know, just get his book because it's awesome. Yes. Yeah, it's a good book. It's beautiful. I'm excited about it.
All right. Anyways. Okay. So what is cool, and I know you're dying to cover this, is feeding behavior or water behavior, right? Sure. Yeah. I mean, as a desert animal, I just... found the research to be pretty fascinating as far as their water requirements. And research on feral asses in general had documented that...
Of course, they can live in these arid habitats like the desert, but they can sustain water loss of up to 30% of their body weight, which is pretty big time. And they can drink enough water in two to five minutes to restore all that fluid loss. So in general, most wild asses are going to be observed within about 30 kilometers of known water sources. However, in the desert, that can, depending on what season it is, if it's a dry season or rainy season or what it's going on, that can...
you know, be hard to find. And so some of the adaptations as far as physiological adaptations, now I know we talked a little bit about this with the camels, with the Bactrian camels, but in wild asses, Interestingly enough, females maintain a higher body temperature than males do, and therefore it's presumed that they lose less water due to sweating.
And a two degree increase in body temperature, potentially, that's seen the females could provide 2% daily water savings. They could hydrate, you know, about a... a pretty good size feral ass. So I think that's pretty interesting. And why females versus males, it makes me think of something to do. Obviously, females usually are going to have either be...
pregnant or have a full, right? So it's more important for them to save more water, perhaps in a male. And regarding their water requirements and their behavior, it's just... Super fascinating in that African wild asses have what they call a resource defense polygamy mating system. I know. It's so cool. It is so cool. So I'm just going to put this. I'm going to put this in a human terms because the visual is incredible. Get back. Get back. It's my food. Mine.
Typically we think of in general, we talk about wild horses or zebras. We talk about a harem or a herd where there's a lot of females, maybe a couple of males, a dominant male, yada, blah, blah. Okay. Totally different. with wild African asses. And a lot of it has to do around water. So the smile wild ass mating system is basically summed up that the dominant male...
hangs out the water source. And when the female needs to get a drink, which of course probably happens once a day or so, she has to go past him. He takes advantage of this opportunity and will, if she's in estrus, he will breed her. And interestingly enough. I think Chris and I touched on it in Prezwalski Horses, but similar to horses, donkeys, after they give birth, they have what's called a full heat.
And so therefore, ladies, if you're out there listening, put your seatbelts on. What full heat means in horses and donkeys is that after they give birth, they ovulate. anywhere from seven to 10 days after giving birth, which means they can conceive and get pregnant seven to 10 days after birth, which is crazy. But it makes sense with their whole cycle because a small and wild ass, their gestation is about 365 days or so.
Horses about 345, 340. So pretty much a full once a year. So in order to keep that gestation period of about 12 months, you've... need to get pregnant shortly after giving birth. So horses and donkeys have evolved this full heat. And with that being said, researchers have shown that wild asses... A female with her foal on the ground will only will stay about a kilometer, one kilometer from a water source, which makes sense because.
The female will need to drink a lot more water because she's lactating and the foal will need a nurse. And so they stick pretty close to the water's edge. But every time they have to go drink, they have to cross the male. And if, obviously if she's not an asterisk, the male probably won't care. He lets her pass. She gets her drink. But within seven days, when she, seven to 10 days, when she comes into that full heat, she's an asterisk, which means.
She's receptive to the male. She has to cross by his territory to get the water and he will breed her and she'll either become pregnant or not become pregnant. She's not, does not. If it's not a fertile cycle, she'll cycle back into heat about 21 to 30 days later. And then as she has to bring the foal back to the water side.
She'll have to pass back by him again and therefore he'll have another chance to breed with her. So it's really interesting. It's basically these territory males, these Somali wild asses gain access to multiple matings. By controlling critical resources that females require. And I, I don't know my. As I was like studying this and reading about this, which I, it's like I knew about it, but I hadn't really read. I read it.
a pretty thick scientific documentation about it of these researchers that have studied this back in the seventies, eighties and nineties. And it just was super, I mean, good for them. What a great evolutionary strategy for the males. kudos males but i pictured myself with my newborn baby alexander being seven days old and me walking past the like refrigerator to get a drink of water or Gatorade or something, maybe a cup of coffee. I don't know. Probably exhausted. And John standing there.
guarding the refrigerator being like, uh-uh, honey. What's up? What's up? Can you, right? Like, what? What the what? That's all I have to say about that. But you don't look good. Estrogen does crazy things to them. We've seen it. Well, that's the thing. If a female, if she is an estrus and she's receptive, then she, you know, I mean, she picks up the curve and says, come on, baby. But I mean.
Yeah. You're still like, I don't want anything to do with you right now. Just leave me alone. Seven to 10 days. Like you and I studied uterine involution. Yes. Seven to 10 days. Every day after a mare gave birth. Birth. That uterus is not ready for another baby. No. It's not cleaned up. She's still recovering, yes. It takes a good 30 days for the uterus to come back to normal.
Yeah, it's interesting that they don't travel in herds, that you have the males guarding resources. Right. And I jumped a little bit ahead of myself to describe this. incredibly interesting male guarding territorial water resource behavior. But in general, the Smalley Wild Ass have basically a fission fusion society. And that's just a fancy terminology for... The groups come and go. They change as time passes, depending on the environments, the season, the resources.
Basically, they're temporary. And so the only things that are really consistent in a Somali wild ass family group are going to be, of course, the dams and the foals, right? And the moms and the babies, which makes sense. And other than that, it'll just basically depend. come together in groups of five or six, especially when resources are plentiful. But in the desert, that's not super often. But there's really fascinating research and I won't...
Maybe if we do an extended version or something of this episode. But as far as what researchers hypothesize about the pros and the cons, because some of the issues with not being such a large herd are in the times where they are. more alone like males will spend time alone sometimes in bachelor groups or uh is it then they're they're at risk for predation right because they don't have that herb protection to talk to each other about oh my goodness like
There's something that's going to come get us or a lion or whatever. And so there's pros and cons to it. And they get some benefits out of it, but they also lose some resources. But in general, the males will have a territory up to nine square miles. And of course, they will travel around looking for different sources of food and different watering holes as well.
And of course, living in such dry, arid, hot climates, the animals graze often when it's cooler, so at dusk and dawn and during the night. And during the heat of the day, you're going to find them probably in a shady spot or in rocky hills. In general, a Smiley Wild Ass isn't going to wander more than 20 kilometers from a drinking source. But that's still pretty good ways, right? And they can go longer.
without water than a lot of other equid species. But they still do need to drink at least once every two to three days. So that female is going to, especially with a full buyer side, she needs to go more often. cross that male who's guarding the waterhole. He's got roses. He's got roses in his, in his hooves for her. Right. Like here, sweetie. But otherwise they can go about two to three days. But it should be said a lot of their overall behavior or even their mating.
characteristics and things, specifics, there's still a lot that's unknown about them as they can be hard. There's not a lot of them left in the wild and they can be a hard species. to study because of these harsh climates that they live in. And they are, they're not in these big herds that are often these fission fusion societies and spread out. But the good news is there's, in North America, there's a couple different... institutions that house Somali wild asses. And so from there...
We can hopefully learn more about their wild counterparts, which is something that Chris and I dabbled with and did a research project in about six years ago or so. Right, Chris? Yeah. Yeah. No, it was. Angie's introduction to me into animal behavior, and it was my first animal behavior study. And what we did, and really I'll give Angie a lot of kudos for it, was because she's the one that pretty much led it.
is we went out and observed the somali wild ass the grevy zebras and then we did a comparison to domestic horses right just to get base time budgets which we mean what they do each day
So what are these animals doing each day? Now, I will tell you, these animals were in enclosures, in large pastures. So this isn't going to be a natural... somewhat behavior maybe in the wild because i would think a grevy zebra a somali wild ass even a wild horse is gonna locomote or move more during the day because they did have really lush pastures
Sure. Right. I mean, especially an animal in the desert that's like eating one scrub brush over here and then has to walk another 500 yards for another piece of food. So yes, that part is definitely probably going to be different for sure. But it was still interesting because it does show when you do, you know, put them in enclosures, they're under human care, what are their behaviors? And I think, you know, one of the things I learned doing this, like I said at the beginning.
was they eat all day, right? So it's just like, do something exciting. Do some social behavior. We did see a lot of foals playing when the foals were on the ground. That was amazing. Which is super cute. Full play is the best. The running, the kicking, the bucking, the jumping, the frolicking. And I showed a video because I took a lot of video too. I always showed it in my behavior class was one of the moms and how she reprimanded a fool that tried to nurse off her.
She just did it very subtly, you know, pinned her ears, looked back at him and walked off. Like didn't kick, didn't bite, just was like, nope, go bug your own mom. And walked off. Xander knows that look. I have that same look. So it was interesting. In our study that we did, the Grevy zebras were less active. compared to the horses and wild asses. But basically, they all were pretty much the same. The Grevy Zebra seemed to be less alert, which was good.
The Somali wild ass and our domestic horses had the same level of alertness. So if you're looking at things like stress. in a pasture or under human care. Like that's something we would, we would think we might see. Didn't see a lot of, you know, I don't think we'd see any stereotypic behavior or anything. No, no, they were, they were. Eating all day, which is a very great sign because that's what they would be foraging, looking for food and eating.
A large percentage of their day. What was the percentage? Oh, like 70% of the day. Close to 70%. There was like 68% of the domestic horses. Wild asses were almost 70%. Gravy zebras were about 55%. Which is great because horses in general, wild horses, they say, will graze up to 16 hours a day in general out of the 24-hour period. So it seems like we were definitely within that ballpark.
that's a great sign for, uh, especially for animals that are living under human care. And, uh, and when that goes to show for the domestic horses too, that we observe because not all the mess, this is my plug for. horses that need to be grazing most of the day. Not all domestic horses, depending on where they live, are able to graze, naturally graze.
most of the day. A lot of them are, especially where we live here in Florida because we have such nice weather and such great grass. But in other parts of the country where it gets cold or there's a lot of snow that horses have to consume a lot of... dried forage or hay and aren't able to exhibit their natural behaviors as far as pretty much eating all day long. And we had friends, I mean, I would say we had friends that were doing research and trying to extend that, right?
They were trying to extend the amount of time they spent eating their hay and doing things like different types of hay bags, different things in their pails. Different enrichment items. Yeah, trying to... make life a little bit more interesting for the stalled horses because they do start developing stereotypic, you know, stereotypic behavior, negative behavior. So.
Now, what was really cool, Angie and I got to see, is we saw these 10 female small and wild asses, and then the babies came. They were all pregnant, and then we saw all the babies and did the study. Which was great because these animals are critically endangered. There's maybe 300 left in the world. They are facing so many pressures. They're first in a very contentious part of the world.
It's hard to study them in the wild. It's hard to get to them in the wild. And it's dangerous. Yes. The other problem is you have domestic donkeys that get loose that are now breeding with the wild counterparts. So now you're getting... you know, mixing the bloodlines because they're not hybrids. They're, they're the same species, pretty much just different subspecies. And they're even hunted for food, you know? So yeah, these, they're facing a lot right now.
So not many left. It's sad, but the center we were working with, the San Diego Zoo, a lot of Lowry Park has some down there in Tampa. The Somali wild asses are being now housed in the United States and in Europe. So there is initiatives to preserve the Somali wild ass, you know, in hopes that we can maintain.
the wild places in that part of Africa and reintroduce them because that is the goal. And, and there are, again, we are seeing success stories. We're posting them on our Facebook page. Please go visit like us if you haven't, but. we are seeing species coming back with concerted efforts. So this is one that is definitely being, a lot of people are working on them to save them. And so that leads me to my conservation organization of the week. And this week I want to give a huge...
I sound like Oprah there, right? Huge. Minus my head gold, right? Yes, yes. A huge shout out to White Oak Conservation. And they are in northeast Florida. And they're a fabulous center that is a huge partner for zoological institutions and a breeding center for species survival. And they're not open to the public. They do private tours and they often have a lot of different camps. And the other day I was looking at one. I'm like, why am I?
too old to go. Like I want to go. I'm counting down the days. Yeah. Yeah. So Xander's old enough to go, but they specialize a lot in a lot of hoof stocks and ungulate species that I love, a lot of rhinos, and I've had the ability to work with them on a few different projects. They are a phenomenal center, and they can be found on Facebook at White Oak Conservation or Twitter handle White Oak Wildlife. And they can be found at whiteoakwildlife.org.
And Chris will put all this information up on the show notes because they're fabulous, fabulous conservation center that. protects in many and many endangered and critically endangered species, the Somali wild ass being one of them, of course. And in 2008, White Oak acquired a herd of Somali wild ass to participate.
and international efforts to help save the species from extinction. And at the time, they're only one of three institutions in the United States. They were breeding the species. So they were... obviously chosen for their phenomenal credentials and their research scientists and collaborative international efforts to help try to grow the Somali wildest population.
And basically ensure that there's a strong population living under human care to help basically protect it from extinction in the wild. Since 2008, white oak has produced over... 20 fulls, including four born in 2015. And it's just a wonderful, spacious facility. beautiful in the woods. Anybody who's not familiar with Northern Florida, it's just gorgeous. Think of like Savannah with the evergreen trees and the live oaks and the Spanish moss. I mean, it's just breathtaking there.
right on the riverbanks. And so lots of areas to run and frog and play, which is why they've had such great breeding success there. And they're learning a lot about the Smalley Wildlife conservation behavior and breeding. And yeah, I just want to applaud the work they do. Check them out. Check out their webpage. Like them on Facebook. They have a lot of, they do really cool stuff with the cheetah conservation and of course rhinos. So yeah, anyways, please, please check them out. Like them on.
Facebook, give them a follow because they're not a typical zoo that's open to the public a lot of times. Even people in Florida don't know about this phenomenal place, and they really should because they do incredible work. Yeah, they're one of the best. So thank you, White Oak. I love you guys. Yes, we love you. Hire me someday. Hire me too. Hire me someday, please. Hire me first, then I'll hire Angie.
That's right. That's right. Or vice versa. I will hire Angie. Come hire me. I would move there in a heartbeat. I love that place. Conservation tip of the week, Angie. This one you're going to like. Okay. So the earth's getting warmer. I am challenging every listener to go plant a tree in the next week. Plant one tree. Just do it. I love it. And with a holiday season. Just plant a tree. Seriously.
Do not get your mom that Instapot, Crock-Pot, Rice-Pot, whatever. There's all this hype now. Or another one of the, you know, Star Wars, Candy Cane. Toys, trinkets, whatever it is. Shh. Don't tell John. I'm getting him a tree for Christmas. Okay. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that challenge. In fact, I've been wanting to get him an avocado tree. Oh, awesome. So it's a win-win for all of us involved.
Just plant a tree. Just go this week. Either get a seedling, grab a seed. I don't care what. Plant a tree this week. I'm going to do it. I almost did it this weekend. I was like. Oh, we can post our pictures. Yes. Okay. Let's do that. Okay. Post a picture. I love it. I'll just plant a big one right there. Even if it's just you and I challenging each other, that's better than nothing, right? Yes, we got to plant trees. You know why? I was watching a commercial. I think it was like...
Honda or Toyota, one of those. And it shows this mom and daughter going out in the middle of the woods, cutting down a tree for Christmas and like how cool they are. And it made me really sad. I was like, no, we need more trees, not less. Don't go cut down a wild tree that's going to grow up and help save the earth.
Damn it. So I was like, for that commercial, I'm going to go plant a tree. And so I thought that would be a good challenge for everybody listening. Just do it. Just in your mind. I need to plant a tree this week. If we have a thousand people do that, we're helping the earth. So. Absolutely. All right. The question was, can horses actually carry a donkey or zebra or even a wild ass?
Despite these chromosome differences that Angie now will remember forever. Nothing like being embarrassed on the air to remember something forever. How many chromosomes do mules have? 62. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no. No, mules are 63. Donkeys are 62. Horses are 64. Everybody in their cars or whoever listening is like, no, Angie. No, there's a little delay on your end of things. I couldn't.
I hear what you were saying. Yeah, I'm on the other end of the country. All right. So we call this interspecies pregnancy. So things like I always thought, you know, looking into this. What if we did Asian elephants carrying African elephants, right? Because, or actually really African elephants carrying Asian elephants because there's less Asians than there are Africans. But anyways, you know, thought about that. Is it possible?
Yes, it is. It is possible. It has been done. Studies out of the UK have done this where horses can actually carry a zebra, a plain zebra. to term and donkeys to term, Przewalski horses to term. It's challenging. There's some genetics and immunology involved that led me down this rabbit hole trying to breed Somali wild asses with white oak. But yes, they can. And it's really cool that...
They can do this. And I think I need a million dollars to study this more because we need to figure this out. Why the genetics behind it, that way we can. you know, use this for other species that are in danger and they have a like species, you know, like the Southern white rhino carrying the Northern white rhino to term. Is that possible? Because the Northern whites are pretty much.
But if we can clone some, I think that's what some of our friends that we've worked with are working on that project to see if we can do that. So anyways, long episode for year two, but we had to start out at a bang. It was a. One of our favorites, one of my top five for sure, all-time species. I love these Somali wild ass. They led me down a path. They led to this podcast. Angie led me down this path because of the Somali wild ass.
So I'm glad we're starting off the year two with them. Love them. We need to save them. Let's fight for them and all the other animals that would share this planet with us. Absolutely. Check out our show notes and we'll lead you to some of the other resources about Somali wild ass so you can get hooked up with them and learn more about them and the conservation groups that are fighting for them. So thank you for listening. Take care.
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