Zealous Zobrani (Zebras)

I am off to Swaziland in 2 weeks, well less than that, and I am looking forward to walking around Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary.  Here you can trek wherever you want to and truly immerse yourselves into the African savannah.  And I love to see the herds of zebra grazing out in the open and hear their whinnys in the early evening, it is enchanting.

Zebras are high up on the menu stakes. To counteract this, a group of zebra, or a 'dazzle' of zebra, bunch up together to confuse predators and mess with their perception, young foals can walk and run after an hour of being born and their eyes are on the side of their heads to give them a wider field of vision to keep an eye out for those pesky predators.  

But what I did not realise is that zebras, or the plural for zebra being 'zobrani', do have a darker side to them.  Zebras (sorry I can quite get the hang of calling them zobrani) form two types of herds; breeding herds and bachelor herds.  Within the breeding herd there is one male and a number of females and foals related to the main man.  Within the bachelor herd are a load of youngsters who have been literally kicked out of their original breeding herd and this is where boys will play.  They fight by kicking and biting to assert dominance, and at times these skills are used elsewhere.  When a younger male challenges an older male of a breeding herd a serious fight ensues.  And if the younger male wins he may kick and bite the offspring of the previous males to the death to ensure his genes survive.

Maybe not so dazzling after all?