At the Schloss Holte Stukenbrock Zoo, Eclyse has earned her stripes as one of the zoo's main attractions. For while most zebra-horse crossbreeds sport stripes across their entire body, Eclyse only has two such patches, on its face and rear. The one-year-old zorse was the accidental product of a holiday romance when her mother, Eclipse, was taken from her German safari park home to a ranch in Italy for a brief spell. There she was able to roam freely with other horses and a number of zebras, including one called Ulysses who took a fancy to her. When Eclipse returned home, she surprised her keepers by giving birth to the baby zorse whose mixed markings betray her colorful parentage. The foal was promptly given a name that is in itself a hybrid, of her parents' names.
Now she's become a major attraction at a safari park at Schloss Holte Stukenbrock, near the German border with Holland, where she has her own enclosure. Udo Richter, spokesman for the park, said, "You can tell she is a mix just by looking at her. But in temperament she can also exhibit characteristics from each parent. "She is usually relatively tame like a horse but occasionally shows the fiery temperament of a zebra, leaping around like one." Horses and zebras are often crossbred in Africa and are used as trekking animals on Mount Kenya.
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