Somali Wild Asses
Name: Somali Wild Ass
Scientific Name: Equus africanus somaliensis
Height: About four feet at the shoulder.
Average Adult Weight: 600 pounds
Life Span: 20 Years
Description: The Somali Wild Ass is gray with a white belly. The lower half of their legs are lightly striped in black much like a zebra.
Habitat: Somali Wild Asses live in hilly and stony deserts and arid to semi-arid bush and grasslands.
Countries found in: Eritrea, Ethiopia and possibly Somalia.
Babies: The gestation period is about one year. A female Somali Wild Ass starts to bread around the age of two years and generally gives birth about once every two years.
Food: They eat grasses, shrub and other desert plants.
Group Name: A pace of asses. Also, herd or drove.
Habits: Males defend areas of up to 14 square miles by marking the area with dung piles.
Conservation Status: Critically Endangered. There are less than 1000 Somali Wild Asses in the wild.
Predators: Humans
Interesting Facts: The domestic donkeys in Italy are descended from the Somali wild ass. In other European countries, the domesticated donkeys are descended from the Nubian wild ass.
African Wild Asses can run up to 30 miles per hour.
In the 16th century, Spanish explorers brought Somali Wild Asses to what is now the southwestern United States. Modern burros are descended from these animals. The Somali Wild Ass is the last remaining ancestor of the modern donkey.