donkey

The donkey / is an animal of the horse genus, and it is a pet, and there is a species that lives in the wild in the valleys and deserts of Africa and Asia and its prairies, and it is called the zebra. The donkey of the equine family, the order of the individual hoof, of the order of mammals, of the phylum Chordata of the animal kingdom of living organisms

The donkey in its general form resembles a horse, but it is smaller and closer to a mule. It has a large head and a short tail that ends with a tuft of hair. Its hooves are small and its ears are long. A female donkey is called an atana and a young donkey is called a colt. Donkeys also vary in size, domesticated from 0.9 to 1.4 m in length, although the mammoth donkey is longer, and the Andalusian donkey may reach 1.6 m in height. The ears are larger than others in the genus Achilles, and they also have more sharp hearing, and the eyes are more forward-oriented than horses

The donkey was first found in the Horn of Africa about 12,000 years ago. The ancestor of the current known donkey, is the Nubian, Somali donkey, according to Clutton Brook's book, The Natural History of Domestic Animals, 1999, during which the African donkey was domesticated from about 4000 B.C., when it became the most important tool for the ancient Middle Eastern civilizations, where the donkey can withstand from 20 to 30 % of its weight, and its milk was also used as food. During the 1800s of Qom, the donkey reached the Middle East, where the commercial Damascus was called the city of donkeys, in the cuneiform writings, and it gave three breeds of them

The donkey was associated with the Greeks with the god of wine Dionysus, and the Romans also sanctified the donkey, using it in their purifying liturgies.

The Achilles genus became extinct from the western half of the Earth, with the exit of the Ice Age, and its return was with the entry of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru at the time of Columbus, when the latter carried 4 red and two asses.

With the advent of the twentieth century, people abandoned the use of donkeys as a means of work, except in rural and poor areas. The emergence of the donkey as a pet was with Robert Greene, and his Minotaur, when he described it: this species, possessing the meekness of a cow, the skin of a mule, the courage of a tiger, and an intelligence comparable to its human brother. The height of the Minotaur is about a meter, which has led many families to take it as a pet when space is available

The donkey has a reputation for its stubbornness, which is inaccurate, because the donkey uses its natural intuition to survive, so it is difficult to force or threaten the donkey to do something against its will

The very few scientific studies about him, the donkey appears smart, cautious, intimate, playful, and enthusiastic educated, which makes them friends of horses because of their calm nature in exchange for the latter's nervousness, and in experience, if a foal is placed next to a donkey and a horse, he will go to the donkey after he gets away from his mare mother

The donkey's trust in his owner is enough to be the faithful helper, just as Britain allows the donkey, only among the animals, to remain free in its gardens.

There are currently 44 million donkeys in the world, only 11 million of them are in China, followed by Pakistan, Ethiopia and Mexico, but their number is more, since they are not among the statistics

The donkey is still used in the work of its ancestors, 6000 years ago, transportation, the most important of which is planting, water, and others such as accompanying horses or even grazing sheep, few of which are used for milking and eating, in the Greek Hydra Islands, and because vehicles are prohibited, the donkey (or walking) is a means only transportation

In particular, the donkey is considered the friend of smugglers, smuggling gasoline, weapons or food, the characteristics of the donkey mentioned help them a lot