(classical music)
(writing on chalkboard)
- Hi there, I'm Josh Clark.
And this is Brain Stuff.
And this is the Brain Stuff where I
explain to you why we don't ride zebras.
Is that right?
Maybe you've seen somebody ride
a zebra before, or, there's videos
on You Tube, and there's a movie
called Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,
and all of it made you think,
why don't we ride zebras?
Why isn't it just a normal thing?
First, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
actually had a painted horse, not a real zebra.
And secondly, while it is possible
to get a zebra, once in a while, to let you ride it,
you can't actually domesticate the
zebra species, as a whole.
Here's why.
So an animal that's domesticated
is actually a member of a species
that has been modified from its
brethren in the wild by human intervention.
Through selective breeding and
making a species dependent on us
for their food supply, we make them
pretty much compliant to whatever
humans want them to do, whether it's
walk down a chute to their death,
or pull a cart, whatever.
Domestication means we've taken a wild species
and made it utterly and completely tame,
as a species.
With me so far?
Now that you understand domestication,
through that lens, it's kind of not that surprising
that we don't have more domesticated species.
All domesticated animals, including the big five
that we humans have really come to depend on:
cows, pig, sheep, goats, horses
have six main things in common, as pointed out
by Jared Diamond, who's the author of a number
of cool books, including Guns, Germs, and Steel.
These six things are kind of big.
They are that the animal is capable
of breeding in captivity.
They aren't picky eaters, which means that
the average human can go out and get food
for these animals.
They have a social hierarchy, which means that
a human can step in as the leader of the group.
They grow very quickly, so you can grow
a bunch of them as quickly as you need them
and replace the ones that die.
They tend not to panic which is
kind of important when you have something
in captivity that, you're saying,
Breed, breed!
Here's some food.
And probably most important of all,
they have a pleasant disposition, which means
they won't attack you every time you go in
to take them their food.
You put all these six factors together
and you have yourself a species that
could conceivably be domesticated.
But, if just one of these factors is missing,
that species will likely never
be able to be domesticated.
And zebras, it turns out,
do not match these criteria in a lot of ways.
Probably most of all, zebras are jerks.
They're very hostile.
They're very aggressive.
And that really means that you can't
domesticate them easily.
But you can't blame zebras for their stripes.
(drum rimshot)
See, zebras evolved on the African plains
and they evolved as a food source for lions.
Zebras don't want to be a food source for lions,
so since they have to fend off these apex predators
on a daily basis, they learned to be
very aggressive and to kick really, really hard.
In fact, a zebra can kick a lion to death.
So just think about what it could do
to a human head!
They also have a really nasty habit
of biting and not letting go.
(munching)
You put all that together, if you
go to take a zebra its food,
while you're trying to domesticate it,
you're in for a big surprise.
All of this about their disposition
and tendency to panic, frankly,
is not to mention that they're
too small to ride.
Zebras backs aren't evolved to allow
a human to ride along, or to carry
even a lot of cargo.
And you can't properly saddle them.
So really, even if zebras were
the nicest animal on the planet,
we would just break their backs
when we tried to ride them.
This is not to say that there is no such thing
as a tame zebra, like we've seen.
But a tame zebra is just an individual.
It's not a member of a domesticated species.
For example, the 2nd Baron Rothschild
used to ride around in a carriage
pulled by his train of zebras
in Edwardian London.
Must've been quite a sight to see.
Plus there's another guy named Bill Turner
who's known to ride his zebra around Dorset.
Apparently it has a stronger than usual back.
But for the most part, you can do away
with your wild, wild dreams of ever
riding a zebra at the park.
It's probably not gonna happen.
And now you know why.
So what animal do you wish you could ride?
I think I would look awesome riding an ostrich.
It's just my thing.
Let us know in the comments below.
And while you're down there, go ahead
and subscribe to Brain Stuff.
And for even more cool Brain Stuff stuff,
go to BrainStuffShow.com.