The cryptid being sighted is unlikely to be a quagga.

Apparently while I was in London, quite a bit of dust was kicked up over in Little Hocking, Washington County, Ohio, by the sightings of at least one striped horse-like cryptid.

Now why would I call it a “striped horse-like cryptid,” you might ask? Because that’s what it looks like, of course.

Understandably, the local media talked about sightings of “an escaped zebra” occurring during the last week of February 2009, in Washington and Athens counties, Ohio. But think of it. The animals seen are ethnoknown, look like zebras, but no one knows if they are zebras.

So by definition, they are cryptids and appear to have the shape of horses with stripes on them.

It will be recalled that until they were confirmed and classified, okapis were thought to be some undiscovered new species of Congolese rainforest-dwelling zebra. This is not to say there are okapis running around Ohio, but assumed descriptions do not necessarily match up with all final identifications.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office was somewhat skeptical of the accounts until a trooper actually spotted “the animal,” and then, according to the media, the “authorities could believe what they were hearing.”

“When people first started calling in, there was some speculation that they may have been intoxicated when they observed these animals, or this zebra, but over the period of the week we’ve learned that there actually is a zebra on the loose,” Sgt. Pat Gherke said.

“No word yet on exactly who the owner is,” mentioned one local paper.

So, right now, the animal is an unidentified cryptid, until it is captured, and definitely verified to be a zebra, quagga, zonkey, or something else.

Let’s just hope it isn’t a white horse painted with stripes so someone could sell “zebra rides”!!

(Photo thanks to Bridle Path.)

As to the 2006 affair….do you remember the Alberta 2006 escapee? Early reports said it was a “quagga” but photos told another story.

Zebastian, the Alberta escapee, was claimed to be a quagga, but he did not exhibit the classic quagga striping, but that of a zebra-horse hybrid.

Click on image for full-size version

Click on image for full-size version

The public domain images shown are an old photograph, directly above, and (at top) a print of the known (extinct) quagga from Africa, along with the new ones sent in of Zebastian.

Thanks to Red Grossinger in Whitehorse, Yukon, for sharing the Zebastian images.

Maybe the Ohio animal was caught during this last week, and I just haven’t been able to find a record of that yet.