A video may make you feel confused by the brutal act of the male zebra, the article will help us explain the truth behind.
Zebras seem to be gentle herbivores, but the fact that a male zebra kills a newborn zebra as soon as it is born is an act worthy of other carnivores such as lions.

Cruelty, coldness and cruelty are what we can see through the short video below. The mother zebra had not yet recovered after giving birth, had to stand up and throw kicks at the male zebra to save her baby’s life in a difficult situation.
Thankfully, thanks to the mare’s efforts to protect her foal, the newborn stallion survived the mare’s ferocious attack and then got up. A miracle of life that makes viewers can breathe a sigh of relief after witnessing the whole incident before.

So why do male zebras act so cruel and cruel?

The act of killing the young of a fellow human is not only found in zebras but also in many other mammals such as Chacma baboons (Papio ursinus), lions, dolphins… “infanticide” (to kill an infant).

Anthropologist Sarah Hrdy of the University of California (USA) was the first to propose an explanation for the phenomenon in the animal kingdom in 1970: “Killing newborns may be an evolutionary reproductive strategy in humans. males and sometimes in females”.

Zoologist Dieter Lukas at the University of Cambridge and her collaborator, behavioral ecologist Elise Huchard at the French National Center for Scientific Research, or CNRS for short, have even delved deeper into the behavior. this vi.

They conducted research and observed the behavior of 260 different species, the results showed that killing young occurs in 119 species, of which the main culprits are males.

After comparing them with other factors related to social structure and mating behavior, both researchers found that killing young was more frequent in animals with a social structure where males and living together.

Especially in that society, there are a few dominant males, controlling the right to mate with the females in the herd (meaning other males will be restricted or banned from mating) but only for a period. some.

In addition, it is related to the seasonal reproductive cycle of the female (that is, the female can mate at any time). Therefore, the male will try to kill the young (especially the offspring of the previous opponent) to gain the right to mate, causing the female to return to estrus earlier.