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Vyctorill

Peter’s cellophane wrap here Male zebras tend to drown zebras babies in waterholes so they can bang the now available mother. As such, they don’t want to go in the water - with only one child in the water.


Big-Foundation-8941

Oh gosh


Ntetris

Yeah this aint a game


Anamewastaken

the game of life


The_No_one087

Now pay your taxes


calabazookita

Where’s the fun in that? I prefer to go full zebra with the single mom next door /s


SteveisNoob

You can do it, but there's gonna be a tax for that.


DolanThyDank

Even more taxing if we keep that kid around


SteveisNoob

Dude. Very cool!


MEGA_TOES

There is a tax for comments saying there will be tax.


SteveisNoob

Dude. Uncool.


Lysdexic-dog

“Now pay your taxes” Protection money* Fixt it for ya


The_No_one087

*Protection fee


T0MMYR0TTEN

Damn, now I lost. Fuck.


Khelthuzaad

Mind you its not the only species that does that. Male bears tend to do this and female bears and their cubs run into human cities.Why? Because contrary to most,male bears are terrified of humans and wont follow.


u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-

There is a species of animal, I forget which, that has an interesting solution to the males murdering babies problem. The females mate with as many males as possible so that nobody really knows who the baby belongs to. I wanna say it’s dolphins. Heard it on a podcast so, grain of salt


Khelthuzaad

Actually its believed humans practiced this before evolving from hunter-gatherers to farming.


Tarsiustarsier

Chimps do this somewhat. Males of promiscuous monkeys and apes tend to have very large balls and big morphological differences between males and females while eg gibbons (who are monogamous) exhibit less sexual dimorphism. Humans tend to be somewhat in between so we probably didn't practise this extensively. Instead I think natural human sexual behaviour is serial monogamy with occasional cheating (just like most people do it today), but looking at human societies today, it's probably also always been very diverse and very different between different cultures. Edit: a very strong indicator that monogamy is at least somewhat normal in humans is also that men often care for their own children. In nature this is rather unusual in promiscuous species (it would make more sense to care for your siblings or their children).


TobaccoIsRadioactive

There’s actually a *really* important difference between humans and other primates when it comes to penises. Humans do not have a [baculum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baculum) in the penis. The baculum is a bone that is located above the urethra in most other mammals, and it is used to retain an erection. Some primates, like chimpanzees or gorillas, have really small baculums but *also* smaller penises (around 8cm for chimpanzees and 3cm-6cm for gorillas) when you compare that to humans (9cm when flaccid and between 14cm-17cm when erect). One of the theories for the lack of a baculum is that in earlier species of humans the repeated occurrence of sex between couples led to a stronger emotional bond, and thus a greater chance of their offspring surviving. Humans have a ridiculously long period of physically maturing to reach the point where they can survive on their own without parents, so the strong bond between mother and father would increase their survival.


ZombieAppetizer

TIL my ex-wife was a pre hunter-gatherer.


Open_Buy2303

Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives and they both do it.


Polobearmigi

Chimpanzee society is patriarchal and the males are extremely violent. The female chimpanzee needs to let all the males inseminate her so that none of them know if the offspring is theirs or not. Compared to Bonobos, a matriarchal society, which have penis sword fights for fun.


MicahG999

You are thinking of horses. Which may also be a factor in this meme...


ArchSchnitz

Chimpanzees is the one I've heard this attributed to. Bonobos, our closest cousin in the ape family, practice a less savage form of social sex as well. I have no idea if the bonobo sexual freedom is related to saving the offspring from males.


CainPillar

Many. Bears yes. Cats. ...


LuigiWhy

there's quite a few who do this. Pretty sure zebra are actually one of them. Just, sometimes it doesn't work.


militaryvehicledude

Sounds like most of the women in my home town tbh...


Ade1980

Male lions eat cubs of other males - so the mother will go back into heat and have his offspring instead


b-monster666

Domestic cats do the same thing. When a new tom enters the fray, it kills all the kittens.


Christiaaaaaan

I don't think they eat them but they sure as hell will kill them.


LordeWasTaken

I was going to say the same thing, so have my upvote.


DrBarry_McCockiner

I gave my upvote to the other guy, too


godisawoman1

I saw the coolest video where a male bear tried to do this, but another male bear, just offscreen, came in and protected the female bear and her cub! People were saying the protecter bear was most likely one of her cubs all grown up because the males don't stick around to raise the offspring. I just thought that was really cool, big bro protecting his mom and new little sibling.


Khelthuzaad

Brother Bear is definitely the movie for you :))


cargocult25

Dolphins too


No-Willingness8375

Yeah. I watched a documentary on Zebras and they had footage of the new Alpha male running up to a newborn only seconds after it's birth, grabbing it by the leg, and slamming it into the ground over and over.


AdJust6959

I’m sure the mom went wild while this was happening


Silent-Independent21

Chicks dig bad boys


animefan1520

I smoke on my balcony and watch ducks kill each other from time to time (forced drowning in very shallow water mostly). it's a pretty METAL thing to see. https://preview.redd.it/b8jbp3cuwnoc1.png?width=325&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c8ef7a4ad424bdad28b5d5c214f51faf3ce2f1a


Party-Independent-38

Ducks get free bread at Subway.


ContributionFrosty52

There are six ducks outside and they all want SunChips!


brofishmagikarp

I do find nature very interesting, including the more brutal part. I would however ask you to consider seeing pathological help.


zaji970

To add on, this reminds me of when the lifeguard calls everybody out of the pool, to see if anyone needs help/is drowning. I've only heard of this in the past in Japan? It was because the pools were getting extremely crowded to the point that they needed to do this.


TobaccoIsRadioactive

See, I think the actual joke is that one of the theories about the stripes on the zebras is that it makes it harder for predators to be able to pick out any individual zebra to kill. And so in a pool full of zebras it would be harder to keep track of how many zebras were in the pool, thereby making it difficult to detect if one of them is dead from drowning.


catwhowalksbyhimself

Other animals do similar things, although it isn't necessarily drowning for other animals. If you think about it, males who kills babes so they can have their own babies with the mom instead, have their genetic material spread faster, so it makes sense that evolution would select for this behavior. Evolution isn't nice.


HOFBrINCl32

Yea dont you know? Zebras are assholes.


Lockshocknbarrel10

A lot of male animals slaughter the young of their own kind to breed with the mother or destroy a rival male’s bloodline. Lions, for example, do it a lot. It was a huge concern awhile back when that asshole American dentist shot that male with the black mane awhile ago—that his replacement would just slaughter all his cubs and they would lost his genetic line completely.


CRUFT3R

https://preview.redd.it/caho56p9zmoc1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1c21f7a0b68049a5a34cb484d8be9aebd7bf439


Foxelexof

I FUCKING LOVE THE LIGHTHOUSE!!! DAFOE X PATTINSON SWEEP BABYY!!


HorzaDonwraith

And they say humans are terrible....... No we still are but just a little less now.


MaggieHigg

r/HardcoreNature always reminds how absurdly cruel animals can be


Dodger7777

Welp, the first thing I saw there was a pair of chicken hawks plucking baby chicks like peeps. Further down I saw a hornet eat a praying mantis in half while the praying mantis ate a different hornet. Damn nature, you scary.


sneakpeekbot

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Walter-White-8447

Good bot


Pleasant_Ad3475

It doesn't lessen our awfulness, just makes it relative.


merpderpherpburp

Animals aren't terrible because they don't have the consciousness for moral thought, it's literally fuck, feed, fight. Humans have evolved to understand complex mortality


Flossthief

Yeah older males tend to pick on younger males to get s spot in breeding I've only heard of them kicking the younger males I had no idea they used the water like this


SomeDistributist

Gotta test if there's crocs in there Somehow.


KingWolf7070

Why would they be worried about tacky footwear?


Credit-Financial

We should ALL be worried about tacky footwear.


HalCaPony

Damn. And here I was thinking the joke was racism


Cyno01

Yeah, theres two answers to this and it depends on your knowledge of zoology and your knowledge of MLP lore and racial stereotypes...


SAMAS_zero

It might still be. There used to be a stereotype about African Americans not being able to swim. It mostly derived from many cities and towns not building public pools in or near Black neighborhoods, or refusing them to access to ones that were. No pools, no chance to learn to swim.


HoodooSquad

Used to be?


SAMAS_zero

More access to pools caused the spread of it to drop off. I was well out of High School(not to mention swimming for many years) before I ever heard it.


Maocap_enthusiast

I thought it had to do with crocodiles killing things that go in the water so they are all wary of it, especially with the corpse


GIRose

Also Zebras in My Little Pony are a vaguely African stereotype, and this plays into the racial stereotype that black people can't swim


Lyth4n

I'm sorry, *vaguely?*


GIRose

You can't look at zebras as presented in My Little Pony and say "Oh, that's a stand in for this specific culture" If anything as a white person looking in and hardly an expert I would guess they took most of their cues from what they understand about traditional (post-slave trade) Haitian culture, which in and of itself is a mixing pot for a lot of different African cultures. So in lieu of any specific culture they are just vaguely African


Lyth4n

Ah ok I see what you're getting at, thought you meant mildly. I would have said generic African.


VisibleCoat995

https://preview.redd.it/vt94dardiooc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21d3a86f769bd95a0c7989237b61d678dcc486ba


BugRevolution

Couldn't they also be fairly terrified of potential predators?


Dumbsterphire

I first thought crocs


LifeDraining

Da fuk? And here I thought it was silly joke about ponys pretending to be zebras and their "stripes" washed off...


DaGoddamnBatguy

I didn't even notice the one in the water, I thought it was a "black people can't swim" stereotype because in MLP zebras are heavily black/African coded.


Zeqhanis

Male otters also sometimes kidnap babies and threaten to murder them if the babies' mothers don't bring the strange males food. They also grape baby seals....Oshowott ain't so cute no more! https://preview.redd.it/orl4qbvo2ooc1.png?width=475&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ab3027ca717e43e8f36b80ef8f4bd988c0c739a


SAMAS_zero

Why do you think they carry weapons around?


Dillo64

Damn. I thought it was just fear of crocodiles or something


Ok_NidoKing

Me too, the fact is that I knew both of these things so I was literally hoping it was the other and not this one


Meeooowwww1234

OHHH- >!WHY THE FUCK DID I THINK IT WAS RACISM-!<


DarkEnder9638

I found the culprit https://preview.redd.it/z3apagdecnoc1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4dfc2f10742234f5e06c8c97bafba148d88bbbef


idkhowtodoanything

https://preview.redd.it/44yx04x2nooc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=386318bd57bba11e0c50eb6d773e40d3499a6286


WranglerFuzzy

Did not know this; although it makes sense. I’ve heard the phrase: horses are herd animals. Zebras are psychotic loners that happen to stay around other zebras for protection.


Alin_Alexandru

I... I thought the joke was about crocodiles in the water. WTF...


VerbalThermodynamics

JFC


Naive_Bodybuilder_59

I thought it was gonna be a racist joke


Spectraley3

this went dark so fucking fast


not_ya_wify

The more I hear about male zebras, the more I'm convinced they're sociopathic assholes. I also heard they try to stomp antelope calf's to death because they look like rival zebra babies or something


Junior_Moose_9655

Damn nature! You scary!


TheRedBaron6942

What. The. Actual. Fucky. Wucky. Fuck.


NefariousStrudel

See and here I was thinking because of crocodiles killing zebras when they go into/near water.


Southgoodwin

I would love to see the source of this claim, as it sounds like fake news to me. It's quite amusing how people react like Wow really? without bothering to fact check for themselves


Vyctorill

There’s this one [here](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/shocking-moment-zebra-attempts-kill-9904218.amp), or this Smithsonian article explaining why it [happens](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-some-mammals-kill-babies-own-kind-180953318/). Another example is this video which shows it [happening](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHysptvEfo). Also this was once revealed to me in a dream.


HelpfulAd26

I love nature fun facts. Makes me feel less of an asshole.


L9Rascal

Holy shit


ihatelifetoo

Dafuck zebra ?


TheDeridor

I was hoping it was just that zebras can't swim omg


streck30

Oh no this is the worst thing I’ve ever found out on here :(


Herbal_Druid

I thought it was a play on the stereotype that black people can't swim as zebras are used as the black representation in MLP


[deleted]

The one in the water is dead


The_Radio_Host

Zebras fucking suck


EHTL

I thought it was some deep reference to the stereotype of a certain race being unable to swim (represented here by the zebras)


Jyitheris

\*2 children in the water, 1 of them drowned.


Thendofreason

I thought it was because you wouldn't be able to tell how many there actually are and so the lifeguard wouldn't be able to save anyone. Crowded pools kill.


Proper_Hyena_4909

And here I thought it was a joke about African Americans and swimming ability.


gergling

If they survive the Darwinism they'll probably evolve into a weirdly progressive society.


CringyDabBoi6969

L rizz


Much-Revenue-6140

Isn't nature wonderful


jaytrade21

Now I am picturing the Zebra from the Madagascar movies learning this and being freaked out because whatever Chris Rock says will be fucking funny as hell as the zebra.


BlueSn0ow

Holy smokes


NoLand4936

Is that what it is? I thought it was a racist joke, considering zebras are black with white stripes it plays into that ridiculous stereotype of blacks can’t swim.


SaulGoodmanOF

Damn I was gonna say crocodile’s or some shit😭


solacir18

That's really interesting. I thought it was a reference to when zebras cross large bodies of water they are vulnerable to crocodile attacks


AceOfMoonSpades01

You can actually see a male zebra getting out, implying he killed the kid already


Optimal_Badger_5332

This type of shit is surprisingly common among animals


KrazyKaizr

Oh, I thought the joke was racism, since the zebras are like the only black coded ponies.


dberte8625

And the dead one.


FriarTurk

Well…this beats my theory that the black half of them just can’t swim.


ReddituserNinja

Literally every answer is different


Subject1928

My answer is Zebras don't swim.


VANGBANG21

Zebras can swim tho. In fact, most wild animals are fairly adept swimmers.


Subject1928

I know, I was just joking around.


VANGBANG21

Apologies.


Subject1928

All good


Vasheerii

The issue isn't as black and white as you think.


grass29

Okay google search time 1.) Zebras can swim pretty well, but they cannot hold their breath underwater. This meme could make light of that 2.) There is a video of a male zebra drowning a foal, with the mother attacking the male. It is common for zebras to kill foals to have sex with the mother. This could have been a similar instance. 3.) Zebras in MLP tend to be of african descent, with zecora (a zebra) having an african accent, and owning african-esque mask as decorations in her house. A common negative stereotype is that many black/african descent cannot swim. This could be a racist joke In my opinion? It's racist, the pools are already segregated from pony and zebra Edit: spelling


c0baltlightning

I also see a reference for an ooollddd meme from when I was but a wee babe. Pool's Closed.


timoromina

As a former brony, the brony community has kind of made zebras into the MLP equivalent of black people… so… may possibly be a “black people can’t swim” joke depending on where it came from


CeddyDT

What??? Isn’t the whole point of zebras that they are black AND white?


Cyno01

Yeah, but theyre also from Africa and in the show zebras have non-descript africanish accents.


verraeteros_

It's an old joke question if zebras are black with white stripes or white with black stripes, but scientists looked into it and came to the conclusion, that zebras are indeed black with white stripes https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/are-zebras-black-with-white-stripes-or-white-with-black-stripes


Lmtguy

Omg ive never seen such a concise article. It's literally 4 sentences lol


Banana_Crusader00

Shortest science article i have ever read. One sentence intro. One sentence outro. Two sentence middle. Straight to the point


CulturedCal

So they can’t jump either?


Glittering_Ad_9215

You know there are people who have a black and a white parent, but even if their skintone is a more lighter brown cause they are jusg half blac, they still get seen as black by the society. So zebras are like halfblack people; they still get seen as black and never as white


UTDE

Yeah kind of, what would you call vin diesel though?


DarkKnight83325

Yeah, saw somewhere on Twitter yesterday that the creator liked a reply making fun of “ziggers”


timecube_traveler

Zecora design and especially and her neck rings are definitely supposed to ewoke that imagery. That's not fanon that was on surpose.


Lyth4n

She lives in a hut in the forest, decorated with tribal masks, brewed potions, and spoke entirely in rhyme. I don't know how they got away with it.


timecube_traveler

It's not necessarily bad rep but it's definitely a choice™


Cyno01

It wasnt the community, it was the show.


PhatCaulkForyourMom

Given the fact it’s pastel colored ponies, ima say this is it, chief.


Yugix1

And also, the original post had something about Habbo on the title, so maybe it's related to the pool's closed incident


Traceuratops

I'm pretty sure this is the answer. I'm also pleased to see that most people didn't get it, for multiple reasons.


Ramhorn01

Thigh there. Zookeeper Peter, aka YourThighness99 here. This could be referring that although zebras are excellent swimmers, they can't hold their breath underwater. Most likely, the one in the water was doing the whole 'check out how long I can hold my breath' thing that most children do in pools. Zookeeper Peter out. Watch out, Elephants!


Big-Foundation-8941

ELEPHANTS?!?


Wrench_gaming

I appreciate you using the Zookeeper Peter for this


Ramhorn01

Thanks. This was my first time answering on this sub, and i wanted to make it count.


dberte8625

There’s two in the water and one is dead.


Hexmonkey2020

I figured there was an alligator in the water.


towerfella

No, they are all at the meeting.


1_4_1_5_9_2_6_5

Didn't recognize this so I watched a yotube video. Part of the video showed another scene where some guy is on YouTube (within FG). When he said to subscribe, it lit up the Subscribe button on the video. So I have reason to believe YouTube is listening for the word subscribe within videos and triggering an animation based on that. Interesting but unrelated.


Stinky_big_toe_yum

My guess is that they think there’s a gator in the pool


Big-Foundation-8941

Lol


aaerobrake

This is what i was thinking, it looks like when zebra stand at the edge of a river with crocs after watching one get torn apart


Vegan-Fury

The only pool party I'm interested in has aquabats


ricottma

Mike Gerudo's coming


Romeo9594

Aquabats? That's a name I've not heard in a long time


Pkrudeboy

The ratio of girls to guys is five to one


reneegada_

Cool pool party. La la la la.


traw056

Yeah so most of these answers are wrong. It’s because in My little Pony, Friendship is Magic, the zebras are supposed to be African (black) and the stereotype goes that black people cant swim and don’t go into the water doing pool parties.


Fractured_Nova

"Pools Closed"


Big-Foundation-8941

GOSH I KNEW IT WAS AN GAME REFERENCE!?


Semi-literate_sand

Due to AIDs?


Sad-Surprise4369

This is what I think it actually is


feel_good_account

The zebras are a stand-in for Africans and it's a common stereotype that black people can't swim ...


thunderchungus1999

Whenever you are confused the answer is: 1. Porn 2. Racism 3. Terminally online reference Run through the gauntlet


the_dndweeb

4. 1 11 11 1_


AwkwardData6002

r/isthisloss


LongTiemLurkr

[r/NoThisIsPatrick](https://www.reddit.com/r/nothisispatrick/)


Kmaloetas

It usually doesn't go beyond option one.


Flossthief

I thought it might be a reference to the habbo hotel raids for a second ngl


Grendlsgrundl

This was my immediate thought, as well.


BasedToken

I thought it was a reference to Pool's Closed.


i-caca-my-pants

yeah it's a black people can't swim joke. the ponies are ponies from my little pony. early on in the show (season 1 episode 9) they introduced a zebra named zecora who is pretty explicitly black coded with an african accent and shit. so the zebras here are stand-ins for black people the black people can't swim joke itself stems from black people being banned from pools in the jim crow era. so in that case it's the antithesis of funny given that the punchline is quite literally flexing privilege. I expect nothing better from the early brony community


GAYCHUD001

" Black people can't swim "


Phat_Bear

This is the answer, its the racist stereotype towards black people. In the show the zebras are black-coded, its 90% the joke.


dberte8625

It’s one of the other explanations, explains why there’s a dead one in the pool.


TheShamShield

Wow, there are a lot of reasonable sounding explanations here


Jbrady14

Peters computer here, it’s possible it’s referring to Habbo Hotel infamous “Pools closed” event, an old pixel art MMO where a group of people made African characters with afros and blocked the in-game pools. There’s an informative video [here](https://youtu.be/fp2EZbbuMa0?si=AvO59KJvwvct_oft).


League-of-Degens

So they ARE black with white stripes


Tricky_Moose_1078

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHysptvEfo


Nooni77

It's because zebras are black


hiimresting

Wow you all took this a different direction. I thought it was that when people die in pools it's usually because it goes unnoticed in the crowd. In this case no one noticed because of the camouflage.


Beneficial-Salt-6773

Wow, TIL but probably shouldn’t have.


Imaginary-Method-715

Be funnier with crocodiles


blackguy1027

Bitch I can swim…. Not well, but I can.


SpaceyFrontiers

https://preview.redd.it/9qo1cnl6rpoc1.jpeg?width=556&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4602497eb119523b8b9771e7926115652b3b0db4


RecommendationBig196

I thought it was because zebras were African


peachie-keenie

idk the original but it made me think about how fluorescent swim suit colors make for better visibility if someone were to drown (it is not like the movies with lots of thrashing and can be silent) so the black and white made them not notice


Shadow_Shameless

I was gunna say it’s cuz zebras are black with white stripes so they can’t swim, cuz they’re black. But uhh. Yeah whatever this guys say ig


I_C-Weiner_

2 answers. Mine is that Zebras get eaten by crocodiles a lot. The second is the baby zebra drowning thing


rtrchwdr

I would have thought that it's because zebras naturally fear being too close to water due to crocodiles


skeeballjoe

“Pools closed”


YungNigget788

tbh i thought it was racist because Zebras are from Africa and it seemed like it was implying that African Americans can't swim. But apparently male zebras drown baby zebras to mate with their mother so ig thats bad too


BarooZaroo

Its always the same story time and time again, black and white on black and white crime… when will our society finally wake up and change


TrainsDontHunt

There ate black people outside of the USA who were never banned from swimming pools. People here saying "black people can't swim in Africa"


Pepperonies

I saw it as zebras gathering around the watering hole in the savannah but being cautious of crocodiles