No one saw it coming.
At a ranch in Italy, the mare Eclipse shared a paddock for a time with Ulises, a breeding zebra. When she returned to Germany, her caretakers at the Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock safari park were not expecting anything out of the ordinary. But Eclipse gave birth to a filly that no horse genetics could fully explain.
They named her Eclyse, a blend of her parents’ names. And unlike most zorses, which have stripes all over their bodies, she only has them on her face and hindquarters, as if someone had painted her halfway through. Udo Richter, the park’s spokesperson, says that her character is also a mix: the horse’s calmness with some of the zebra’s wild temperament.
Today, Eclyse remains the place’s main attraction, living proof that nature sometimes improvises better than any plan.
