A Mother Zebra Drop Kicks a Lion in The Face To Protect Her Baby

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For all the love that a mother has to protect her young, in the wild, many animals know that when it comes to predators, there is little they can do to shelter them from the inevitable. However, there are many cases, like the video above, where a mother will stand up to a predator, even facing certain death, for getting in between them and a meal. Don’t miss the bravery at the top!

Lion Hunting Zebra

The short YouTube video clip shown above takes us to Tanzania. The USA River TV YouTube page shared this video to their platform of followers mainly residing in Tanzania. Much of their short-form video content is of animals such as birds, elephants, baboons, cheetahs, snakes, and chameleons. 

Mother Zebra Defends Her Young

As the video at the top of the blog post starts, we see that a lioness has found a mother zebra and her young foal. This lioness knows that for all her strength, it would be easier for her to go after the foal than it would be to go after the mother. 

After waiting for the perfect time to strike, she charges straight for the foal and grabs him in a chokehold. This is common nature for lions to grab the weakest part of the animal in order to quickly subdue them. It seems that all is lost once the lioness has sunk her long canine teeth in. 

But the mother zebra doesn’t skip a beat. She must intervene before the lioness gives the killing blow to her foal. The zebra comes in and quickly headbutts the lion. Not enough to stop the lioness, she turned around, used the force of her hind legs, and kicked the lion in the face with up to 3,000 pounds per square inch (PSI). 

Is a Zebra White With Black Stripes?

Now for the controversy of the century. Is a zebra (Equus quagga) white with black stripes? Or are zebras black with white stripes? We would venture to say that the majority of people reading this blog post would say that they are white and have black stripes.

However, according to the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, Greg Barsh, MD, PhD, states that zebras are black with white stripes. Live Science explains this as “Zebras’ black fur is chock-full of melanin, but melanin is absent from white fur, in essence, because the follicles that make up the stripes of white hair have “turned off” melanocytes, meaning they don’t churn out pigment.”

It’s an easy confusion because the underbellies of a zebra are so light that the appearance of the eye may be white. However, this is why research is so important so that we can stay informed on things beyond what our eyes can see.