Photo: Screenshot from webiste

Staff in a zoo in Central China's Henan denied that they used a donkey to disguise it as a zebra as netizens accused, revealing the story of failed mating between a zebra and a donkey, media reported Friday. 

The zoo's staff told media that they tried a few years ago to mate a zebra in the zoon with a donkey to produce a zeedonk  but failed. Now, they no longer keep the two animals together, media reported. 

The zoo replied as netizens joked that it was using a donkey to disguise it as a zebra after a video showing a donkey kept in the zoo's zebra enclosure went viral on social media recently.

A zeedonk, also known a zebrass, zebronkey, zonkey, zebadonk, zenkey or deebra, is an interspecies cross between a zebra and a donkey.    

A zedonk was born in 2010 at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in northern Georgia. It has a zebra father and donkey mother, with black stripes prominently displayed on her legs and face, media reported. 

In 2011, China's first zeedonk was born in a zoo in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province. 

Global Times