Mountain Zebra
Equus zebra
Status: Vulnerable. Native to the southwestern part of Africa, preferring mountainous areas and grasslands. They were hunted to near extinction, but conservation measures have brought them back from that brink, and today, most of them live in national parklands.
The San people of Kalahari Desert associate zebras with water and rain. The nomadic !Kung say that the rain-laden storm clouds are zebras, galloping erratically across the skies. The also tell of the three stars that form Orion's belt are three zebras.
One evening, the trickster sky god, Gao N!a, stood upon the Large Magellanic Cloud (a dwarf galaxy satellite of the Milky Way), and shot at the zebras. He missed his shot, and afterwards, he decided to send the zebras to earth, that Bushmen hunters could have them. The zebras galloped out of the sky, and one by one set hooves down to the earth.
In a San folktale of long ago, the sun was very hot, and had dried up nearly all the water so that land and animals were parched. A Baboon found himself a watering hole, and set up a fire beside it and claimed the water for his sole benefit.
Zebra was wandering by, and seeing the water, stopped to drink. Baboon was so angry, and told him to go away, for it was his pool. The argument escalated into a fight, and during this tussle, Zebra gave a mighty kick that sent Baboon flying far, to land on his seat (thus why his bottom is bare of fur to this day).
Disoriented from the fight, Zebra wandered back to the watering hole and through the smoky fire that Baboon had left, and the flames scorched his flanks. The soot marked his sides with the striped pattern that he has had ever since.
References:
Marshall, L. (1999). Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press.
Plumb, C., Shaw, S. (2018). Zebra. United Kingdom: Reaktion Books.
https://www.gateway-africa.com/stories/How_the_Zebra_Got_his_Stripes_San.html