The+Donkey

The **donkey** or **ass**, ( //Equus africanus asinus )//, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. A mule is the offspring of a jack (male donkey) and a mare (female horse). The much rarer successful mating of a male horse and a female donkey produces a hinny. For the Greeks, the donkey was associated with Dionysus, the god of wine. The Romans also valued the ass and would use it as a sacrifical animal. Equines had become extinct in the Western Hemisphere at the end of the last Ice Age. However, horses and donkeys were brought back to the Americas by the Conqistadors. In 1495, the ass first appeared in the New World when Christopher Columbus brought four jacks and two jennys. It is from this bloodline that many of the mules which the Conquistdors used while they explored the Americas were produced. Shortly after the United States became independent, President George Washinton imported the first mammoth jack stock into the country.