Zebra
Featured in: Year 1: Animals, including humans
Zebra
Mammal
A horse-like animal with black and white stripes that eats grass in Africa.
💡 Fun Facts
- A zebra's stripes help confuse predators and keep biting flies away.
- When chased, zebras run in a zigzag pattern to escape predators.
- They sleep standing up.
Name Story
Equus quagga
means “the horse that calls 'kwa-ha'”
What does its name mean?
- Equus — horseLatin
- quagga — a name copying the animal's barking call, 'kwa-ha-ha'Khoikhoi (southern African)
Its name echoes its own voice — the barking 'kwa-ha-ha' call that gave the Khoikhoi people their word 'quagga'. Sadly, the quagga was also a kind of zebra hunted to extinction, and the plains zebra now carries its lost cousin's name.