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

---

From mules to ligers, the list of human-made hybrid animals is long. And, it turns out, ancient.

Meet the kunga, the earliest known hybrid animal bred by people. The ancient equine from Syro-Mesopotamia existed around 4,500 years ago and was a cross between a donkey and a hemippe, a type of Asiatic wild ass, researchers report January 14 in Science Advances.

Horses didn’t appear in this region of Asia until 4,000 years ago, centuries after their domestication in Russia (SN: 10/20/21). But dozens of equine skeletons were excavated in the early 2000s from a royal burial complex dating back to 2600 B.C. at Umm el-Marra in northern Syria. The animals, whose physical features didn’t match any known equine species, appear to be “kungas” — horselike animals seen in artwork and referenced in clay tablets predating horses by centuries.

“They were highly valued, very expensive,” says paleogeneticist Eva-Maria Geigl of Institut Jacques Monod in Paris.

News Source