After two years of economic blockade, the zoos in Gaza are suffering. Only one has a zebra, but there's something about this zebra that seems, um, un-zebralike.

"It's really a painted donkey," admitted Mahmud Berghat, the director of Marah, when asked about the creature. Making a fake zebra isn't easy—henna didn't work and wood paint was deemed inhumane, so they finally settled on human hair dye. "We cut its hair short and then painted the stripes," Berghat explained behind the closed door of his office.

It did the trick—if not for zoologists, then at least for legions of Gaza schoolchildren who have never seen a real zebra. When I asked him whether anyone had ever caught the ruse, the director admitted that two sharp university students had IDed the counterfeit creature. "But don't tell anyone," he said. "The children love him."

Most zoo animals have to be smuggled in through tunnels, but a zebra was too expensive for the Marah zoo. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Sharon Weinberger)