Wild Bachelor

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Lone Przewalski’s horse bachelors sometimes visit Chornobyl to try to steal the domestic mares that work in various zone services. At first I thought that this one was a hybrid – a mix between a Przewalski’s horse and a domestic horse -- because one sign of a hybrid is a falling mane. Unlike horses and donkeys, whose offspring – mules – are sterile, Przewalski’s horses and domestic horses produce fertile young. But it's actually a zoo horse that was released into the zone in 2004. Zone workers feed him and another zoo horse, and they both wander around Chornobyl, providing photo-ops like this one. He mane falls because that's what happens to Przewalski's horses' manes when they are kept in domestic conditions.(Photo courtesy of Kate Brown)

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