Talk:Zonkey (zebroid)

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Title of Article / Colchester Zoo[edit]

Colchester Zoo claim to have bred the first of these, and they call it a "Zeedonk", perhaps the article should be there? [1] -- sannse (talk) 18:05, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

More info for this. Google gives:

  • zebrass = 559
  • zebronkey = 252
  • zenkey = 506
  • zedonk = 676
  • zeedonk = 166

sannse (talk) 18:23, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've gone for Zeedonk, it's the spelling the BBC and Colchester use for the option that's most popular on Google - the others are all redirects of course - sannse (talk) 18:29, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This article is contradictory: in the first paragraph, it states that "Donkeys are closely related to zebras and belong to the same horse family. Therefore unlike mules, zeedonks are fertile and can reproduce." however the second paragraph states that "Like mules however, they cannot breed, due to any odd number of chromosomes." I find it hard to believe that donkeys in South Africa and donkeys elsewhere have a different number of chromosomes. --Hazhar 20:14, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've done some reading around on-line, and every mention I can find on this issue says that they are sterile - I've removed the contradictory sentence in the first paragraph -- sannse (talk) 22:59, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You might have to remove the bit about the odd number of chromosomes as the article mule states that donkeys have 62 chromosomes while the article zorse mentions the same number regarding zebras. This, of course, would leave us with the question where the infertility really comes from.  –  Korako 09:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The zebra article says that "Grevy's zebra has 46 chromosomes; plains zebras have 44 chromosomes and mountain zebras have 32 chromosomes". However this article says "the zebra has between 44 and 62 (depending on species)". Unfortunately there is no citation for either. Through googling I found this link, which includes a table from a 1971 book Genetics of the Horse which agrees with the zebra article. Does anybody object to me change the the contradictory in in this article so it agrees with the zebra article? --Bytor (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my updated numbers on Google references in the "rename as ZONKEY" posting below. — Lisasmall 13:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Headlines[edit]

I didn't know a zonkey was a real animal until I did a search on the term. I beleived much as Tonight Show Staff probably did - that the author mispelled the word donkies. I thought it an interesting bit of trivia.
JesseG 00:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Title of Article; Rename as ZONKEY?[edit]

Unless there are strong objections, I would like to move this article to ZONKEY (which presently exists only as a redirect to ZEEDONK).

I believe this article should be renamed ZONKEY, which produces these Google comparisons as of this date:

  • zonkey=25,500
  • zedonk=11,000
  • zeedonk=670
  • zebrass=892
  • zebronkey=857

Colchester Zoo's spelling is certainly a minority. The double-ee spelling seems to be unknown among at least U.S. breeders, when I checked their sites last week for material on different article.

The Colchester Zoo's URL given in the 2004 message above is not working, and I was unable to search their site. However, any claim to have bred the first zebra-donkey hybrid has got to be dubious; it is a simple thing to do, and has been done since at least 1815, in a case Charles Darwin commented on in 1859 & 1868. -- Lisasmall 22:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, after saying earlier that the google numbers for zonkey are pretty overwhelming (although I don't get anywhere near the numbers that you do, trying it), now I have to pop in with these two items to the contrary:
  • Dictionaries seem to have "zedonk" but not "zonkey"[2]
  • This article says that breeders have generally settled on zedonk as the name
So now I'm of mixed minds (better than of mixed species, I suppose); other than the google search numbers, are there some good references that indicate that zonkey is more preferred? Elf | Talk 22:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, Elf, you're right, today "zonkey" produces only 10,500, a HEFTY drop. Zedonk drops to 597, another astonishing drop. Zeedonk takes a wild leap up to 1,200 (and includes non-English pages; filtering for E-only drops it to 1,090). What the heck? Did they alter their programming somehow? I can't explain this; all I can do is say those are the numbers I got the day I posted. Switching to Google News search, I get zero results on zonkey, zedonk, zeedonk today.
Hmmm. As to good references to establish common usage, I think we'd need to look at search engines, dictionaries, and other encylopedia. I had a strong bias towards search engines showing usage more contemporary (and more quantifiable, however crudely) than dictionaries, but now, seeing how these numbers have varied so widely among my two searches plus yours, I have lost faith! Via Dictionary.com, American Heritage® Dictionary has zedonk, but not zonkey nor zeedonk nor zebrass. No other dictionary shows up in that search. Give me a day or so to poke aroud a bit more. I think "zeedonk" is a definite loser, though, and "zonkey" still vastly outnumbrs "zedonk," so we may need to decide whether Wikipedia should put it where the breeders want it, or where common people expect it. Which determines, the specialists, or the general contemporary parlance? Hmm. -- Lisasmall 01:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm indeed. Your last question is in constant debate on wikipedia, so there is no definitive answer that I can find, although the preponderance and stated goal are towards common usage (Wikipedia:Naming conventions: "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.") Anyway, post if you find more info. :-) Elf | Talk 17:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I'd throw my two cents into this discussion. I believe zeedonk, or at least zedonk should be the main title article and all others should redirect to this, as I feel it is the most commonly used term[3]. However, it occurred to me that the name perhaps changed depending upon the species of the respective parents, in a similar way to ligers (the offspring of a male lion and a tigress) and tigons/tigrons (male tiger plus lioness). The OED seems to agree with this [4] vs [5]. I'd be interested to hear what people seem to think. Holypeanut 01:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou to Lisasmall for pointing out that my references don't work! Sorry, I'm a student and my university has clearly subscribed to the OED! Because of this I'll briefly describe what the OED says:
  • Zedonk This is what the definition is head as in the OED but then says "also zeedonk". It is defined as "The offspring of a male zebra and a female donkey".
    • To confuse things further, as one of the citations they reference an Australian episode of Panorama which refers to a "Zareeba"! But then the Aussies do have a penchant for giving things strange names (I'll assume everyone has seen the 'Bart vs Australia' Simpsons episode with the line "I'd have called it a shazwazza" referring to a bullfrog...).
  • A Zonkey on the other hand is described as "The offspring of a zebra and a donkey". So no help there then; but, one of the citations below this (from the NY Times, 6th March 1983) reads "Melancholy exemplars abound: a male camel who recently injured a foreleg;..and a morose-looking zonkey - the mother a zebra, the father a donkey" which seems to assert that a Zonkey has a Donkey Dad, whereas the Zeedonk has a Zebra for his father.
I hope that's some kind of help. (Also as far as I am aware, I have lived near Colchester my whole life, Colchester Zoo reintroduced the breed after all previous hybrids had died out; this, I believe, is where the usual claim that Colchester Zoo created the first Zeedonks comes from). Holypeanut 13:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Holypeanut, thanks for putting this info in here and for putting so much time into getting the details. After a great deal of research on zonkeys (by whatever spelling) during the past five weeks, I believe what you're seeing in the usage difference in these two specific examples -- the OED's attachment of zedonk/zeedonk to male zebra x female donkey, versus the New York Times attachment of zonkey to female zebra x male donkey -- is the difference in common parlance between the UK and the US, rather than an attempt to lead with the patronymic prefix to detail the parentage, as we do with ligers and tigons.
I checked the website you provided, but didn't pick up on any assertion there that zedonk is the most common use (and the page doesn't mention zeedonk). Those two variants probably are common use near Colchester, because of the Zoo's near-unique use of Zeedonk for their animals; but see the new heading below for what comes up as most common on a worldwide search. Colchester's "first" claim may be based on being the first to breed and display the hybrids in Britain after a long absence from public exhibition; but zonkeys apparently have been bred by fanciers in many nations without a break since Darwin's day. Thanks again for the good communication here and in our Talk pages.  :) -- Lisasmall 05:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Title of Article; Renaming Update[edit]

I had a long discussion with Admin Goatasaur tonight about the pending rename of this article. We mused a very long time over whether zedonk, the name preferred by breeders, should be used instead of zonkey, the name preferred by the general public. Here are the Google statistics from February 8 and tonight:

  • zonkey=25,500 on Feb 8; today: 19,500 & 227 images (Y=4,620)(L=3,190)
  • zedonk=11,000 on Feb 8; today: 10,200 & 95 images (Y=1,140)(L=975)
  • zeedonk=670 on Feb 8; today: 689 & 45 images (Y=917)(L=1,280)
  • zebrass=892 on Feb 8; today: 23,300 & 82 images (Y=1,090)(L=1,710)
  • zebronkey=857 on Feb 8; today: 712 & 3 images (Y=223)(L=232)

Y=Yahoo & L=Lycos. Admin Elf and I both repeated the search after Feb 8 and got varying numbers, though the rank order didn't change. Goatasaur explained that it depends on which servers Google happens to be using at the moment Google runs a particular search; that's why figures bounce around. The sudden and incongruous 2,612% rise in "zebrass" appears to be an anomaly:

  • it's not consistent with the Feb 8th numbers or the times I've checked since
  • it's not consistent with the image frequency
  • it's not consistent with its rank position if the comparative searches are done in Yahoo or Lycos in lieu of Google
  • checking the images' captions, "zebrass" often seems to reflect non-English speakers' attempts to pluralize "zebra" -- but not 23,000 times, surely, and that doesn't explain why it turned up in today's count and not in the count a month ago.
  • there is a funk/soul/disco band called ZeBrass, also spelled Ze-Brass, that is producing hits on "zebrass" tonight but again, no explanation for why today and not in February.

In any case, the use of "zonkey" is generally twice to four times as common as the use of "zedonk." The Wiki policy quoted by Elf above is Wikipedia:Naming conventions: "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists." That, in combo with the stats, seems to suggest that the common usage, "zonkey," should take precedence over the breeders' preferred term, "zedonk." I plan to request a move later this week after a few days for anyone who has a differing opinion to weigh in here.


Sounds more than reasonable to me!

I know I didn't really contribute to this discussion, but it's been a while since anyone has commented, and it seems to me that consensus has be met that the article should be moved to Zonkey (which I agree with), so I'm going to go ahead and move the article and redirect articles linking to Zeedonk. —Mears man 05:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it wouldn't let me move the page myself (I should have realized that), but I did put in a request to have the article moved. Hopefully, it's only a matter of time. —Mears man 05:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Something More Recent[edit]

Has anyone else checked out the article / photo of the young zenkey born in a free range zoo near Tokyo in 2003? (Check Aug.'03 editions of Daily Yomiuri, or website www.smh.com.au/2003/08/28)

Does anyone know if this foal (although no longer a foal) is still alive?

Rarity contradiction[edit]

"Zeedonks are very rare." [...] "In South Africa they are called zonkeys and are fairly common where zebras and donkeys are found in proximity to each other." - which is it? --McGeddon 09:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of this discussion was to move this page to Zonkey --Lox (t,c)

The following request to move a page has been added to Wikipedia:Requested moves as an uncontroversial move, but this has been contested by one or more people. Any discussion on the issue should continue here. If a full request is not lodged within five days of this request being contested, the request will be removed from WP:RM. —Stemonitis 09:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The discussion above gives clear reasons for choosing the name "zeedonk" over the other possibilities. --Stemonitis 09:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above actually looks like (near) consensus for moving the article to zonkey, and clear reasons are given (zonkey generally seems to be more frequently used than any other form). Sakkura 00:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree and support. If they occur naturally in South Africa, that would also be the sort of strong association mentioned in WP:ENGVAR. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, a consensus was met before but no action was taken. Are there any additional steps that must be taken to see this through? 67.161.92.45 (talk) 02:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Five days have now elapsed since the move was proposed on WP:RM. Since there seems to be a consensus for a move to Zonkey, I am requesting admin assistance; this page should be moved soon --Lox (t,c) 11:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Revisiting the name[edit]

I don't know if simply counting google results was the best way to try and decide the name. A quick search of Zonkey returns results that have nothing to do with Zebras and Donkeys and a lot of the results that come up are related to this article or other wikis. A current search for Zonkey and Zedonk produce these results:

  • Zonkey 140,000
  • Zedonk 122,000

but the Zedonk result seems to be producing fewer non-donkey results at least through the first few pages, and doesn't really turn up much related to wikipedia and other wikimedia results. I think an official name needs to be found for this and the article changed. I think at this point Zonkey only has more search results as a result of it being used as the title on a wikipedia article which can generate a lot of replication--Crossmr (talk) 00:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've just done a Google search and there seems to be a huge surge of Zedonk
  • Zedonk 295,000
  • Zonkey 138,000
It seems that a zedonk was born at a wildlife reserve in the US, and this may account for the surge in Zedonk[6]. A Google News search pulls up 486 for zedonk and only 7 for zonkey, with a few of them referencing zedonk as the more common name. User:Bilky_asko ☞ Talk Pagé 08:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And, by "them", I mean the 7 articles. User:Bilky_asko ☞ Talk Pagé 08:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I think this was a very poor way to decide the name on this. I'm inclined to agree with Zedonk, but I think we need some academic sources.--Crossmr (talk) 10:06, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This sure has a lot of names[edit]

Also:

Ngram – hmm, I wonder if Wikipedia is responsible for the post-Y2K divergence; before the millennium there were two close competitors. wbm1058 (talk) 03:15, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, just noticed this:

  • 04:39, 3 March 2019‎ Keizers moved page Tijuana Zebra to Zonkey (Tijuana): Sources use the term Zonkey almost exclusively, whereas "Tijuana zebra" is either not used or rarely used. To disambiguate from "zonkey" meaning a zebroid, "(Tijuana)" is added.

So maybe the rapid increase in use of "zonkey" since 2001 is due to the Tijuana phenomenon. That article was started in August 2007, but says the practice of stripe-painting dates to the late 1940s. wbm1058 (talk) 12:34, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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