A zoo in the Egyptian capital Cairo has vehemently denied claims that it tried to pass off donkeys as zebras by painting them black and white.
Egyptian student Mahmoud Sarhan exposed the alleged masquerade in a Facebook photo, in which he is seen posing next to one of the offending animals at Cairo’s International Garden park.
The beast appears to have unusually large ears as well as suspicious blotches of black on its snout and body, but Sahran wrote in the photo caption that it was the animal’s recognizable braying sound that well and truly gave it away.
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Zoo officials denied making an ass of themselves, with the facility’s director telling local radio station Nogoum FM that the animal is in fact a zebra and not a donkey in disguise.
However, a veterinarian told news outlet Extranews that he concurred with the disgruntled student, pointing out that real zebras have dark snouts, not striped ones.