I was like in my 20’s - it was a total shock.
That they are hybrids, as a kid. Although I’m sure I didn’t know the word hybrid but I knew they are cross species.
That they are sterile, probably late teens.
That a cross between a jack and a mare is called a mule but the cross between a stallion and a jenny is called a hinny, I was in my 30’s.
Oddly, even though I grew up in a rural area and actually worked on a farm one summer, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know mules were hybrids till I read the Foundation series by Asimov in my early teens, where the fact is mentioned.
At age 10 or less. Something to do with a Francis the Talking Mule movie.
I can’t recall ever not knowing.
Now that, on the other hand, I didn’t learn until I was (checks watch) 40 years, 7 months, 3 days and several hours old.
I dunno how old I was, but I found out from Encyclopedia Brown.
As a teenager when I was reading about genetics and evolution. It was given as an example of hybrids, also including zorses, ligers, wolphins, etc.
Quite young, due to being your stereotypical horse mad girl.
Dunnow, but a child.
I remember Dad going over how to tell a donkey, a mule and a horse apart with my brothers when they were little, but I don’t remember him doing it with me; must have, though.
Definitely a child, less than 10. My parents both grew up around livestock and were always sharing science-y tidbits they thought were interesting so we knew lots of odds and ends. Didn’t know the hinny part though.
I think 7th grade biology. I knew they were a cross between a donkey and a horse before that but I don’t think I fully understood the implications of that or what “species” really were from a scientific definition standpoint until then.
I must have learned this before I was old enough to remember learning it.
This. I feel like I’ve always just known.
Probably about 12. I was reading a STAR TREK novel in which someone referred to Spock as a mule, so I looked it up.
Aged 11 – learnt about it in school, where as an “aside”, a waggish teacher posed the trick question “If you meet a man who informs you that he breeds mules for a living, how does that tell you that he’s a liar?”
If not for this, it could well have been a good deal longer before I became aware of the beasts’ sterility – I live in a country where mules are rather seldom met with in real life.
Whatever age I was when I read my first Encyclopedia Brown book. Otherwise, it’s not something that comes up.
Well, I’m 33. So, 33.
Around the age of 9 or 10 I think .
It was a while later that I figured out that the 'stubborn as an ole mule ’ that my grandmother compared my grand dad to , and the ‘hard headed jackass’ that my grand dad would sometimes compare one of us kids to , were one and the same .
I don’t know how old I was but I suspect I learned it via Marguerite Henry.
Somewhere between 8 & 10. As a horse crazy kid I read everything horse related I could get my hands on.