Zebra Stuffed Animals & History

For anyone considering a change of decoration to a child's room or playroom, beginning with a collection of plush toys for the central design theme, is a great place to start. A zebra stuffed animal is one soft toy that allows for all kinds of possibilities when it comes to both the theme and the design. With its signature black and white stripes, a zebra stuffed animal can be made the focal point of the room and then everything else wall color, curtains- will easily fall into place.

It was in the Roman coliseum where Europeans first saw Grevy's zebras. They were called hippotigris which comes from the Greek hippo, meaning horse and tigris, meaning stripes like a tiger. Zebra's were never seen again in Europe until 1882 when the President of France at the time, Jules Grevy, received a live one as a gift from emperor Abyssinia. Alas, when the animal arrived, it subsequently died and was then stuffed and put on display in the natural history museum in Paris. A French scientist named the animal Equus grevyi in honor of the French President, [Grevy], and declared it a new species based on its unusual skin. The word Equus is Latin for horse and is the name used for all closely related species of horse and zebras. The word zebra is believed to come from the world zecora which is from the Ethiopian language of Galla or, it may also have come from the actual word zebra which is Congolese.

William John Burchell was a British explorer of Africa and spent 1810 through to 1815 travelling 4,300 miles in Southern Africa. Burchell discovered many new species including the white rhino and another species of zebra which was named after him Burchell (or plains) zebra (Equus burchelli). On his travels, he gathered more than 63,000 specimens of plants and animals, many of which were new to the science community.

Grevy's zebras can be found living mainly in Northern Kenya, and some parts of southern Ethiopia. Historically, however, they lived in Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Dijibouti and Kenya (in East Africa). In the year 2000, when the last survey was conducted in Kenya, there was an estimated population of 2,751 Grevy Zebras. The current estimates in Kenya, however, place the population between just 1,838 and 2,319. In Ethiopia, there has been an estimated 90 percent decrease in Grevy zebras with a number of just 126, which is down considerably from the estimated 1,900 that lived there in1980. In contrast, the species of Burchell zebras typically live in southeastern Africa in open savannas. They like open grasslands and open woodlands although they have been known to live in tall grass, heavy wooded areas and even mountain regions in elevations of 14,000 feet.

When purchasing your choice of zebra stuffed animal, you won't know the physical differences in terms of the different species. Overall, it makes no difference when using a zebra stuffed animal as a focal point for the redecoration of a room. As long as it has black and white stripes, four legs, and rounded ears, you can rest assured you do in fact have one of the zebra stuffed animal species.