Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans

Kai Bodell

1/20/22

Ippolito 9H

Current Event 10

 

Buehler, Jake. “Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans.” Science News, January 14, 2022.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/kunga-donkey-wild-ass-hybrid-biology

 

            Recently, fossils of an extinct animal have been found; one that seems to be part of the equine family. Given that it is related to a horse, researchers looked into the background of that animal in history. They found that Horses didn’t appear in Asia till 4,000 years ago. But these equine skeletons have shown up in the area, meaning they must of been another animal; like a hybrid. They soon discovered that this animal was a mix of donkey and a hemippee. This animal was soon labeled as the “kunga”, known to be the oldest known hybrid bred by humans. Evidence of their existence appeared through history in sculptures and paintings, depicting an image of the horse-like animal. It seems to be valued in a sense by humans; I am sad to say that they cannot be bred again.

 

            This discovery has an affect on society because it gives us a new insight on how life used to be. This included when certain animals migrated to each region, or what civilizations involved these animals into their everyday lives. We also got a lot of insight from the drawings, depictions as well as sculptures that were made during these times. That shows us more about the animal and the uses for this animal. We have discovered that they are very valuable and at the time they were used for many different things. As I already mentioned they cannot be bred again, but we can at least appreciate their uniqueness and reliability while they did exist.

            Some of the strengths in this article is that it was very well written and very concise. This allowed the reader to really understand the information provided and using the pictures that were pasted in the article,  we were able to put an image to the words that were written. Another strength is the in-depth detail this article provides. It goes into the background of the background the effect on society as well as what the animal is, all into a few paragraphs but just giving enough information to provide the reader with a general understanding of the topic.   On the other hand, some weaknesses I discovered were that some of the information provided was ongoing and continues to repeat the same background information.  Though this was helpful in the total understanding of the topic, I feel as though it would be better if the writer had included even less words but the same amount of information.  In other words, I would prefer the writer to stay a little bit more on topic, but overall, I think this subject is very interesting and the article is very persuasive. Some way to improve this writing is to provide enough information to inform the reader on the topic but not overbear them with information so they get lost in the words.  But as I already said this article was very well written and I highly recommend reading it yourself.