How old were you when you found out mules were sterile hybrids?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I came from a rural background, so I always sort of knew. The problem was keeping donkeys and mules straight. The only way I could remember was by reminding myself that mules are the ones that are stubborn, so, too stubborn to breed, except sometimes too stubborn to know they can’t breed…well, it worked for me as a memory aid.

Anyway, I wasn’t the only one who had trouble remembering, maybe because horses were a luxury and neither donkeys nor mules were common in these parts. In high school I was on the scholastic bowl team, and since there was no such thing as, say, Class M scholastic bowl, we were constantly ending up playing schools several times larger where one actually had to try out for scholastic bowl. So one day we had journeyed a considerable distance to a semi-metropolitan area for a tournament, fulling expecting to come in last as usual, when a minor miracle occurred and there was actually a question we had hope of being able to answer first.

This question was, “What is the only animal unable to reproduce?” (Yes, I know, there is more than one, but obviously they meant the most obvious.)

Our team leader hit the buzzer and blurted out, “The donkey!” As soon as he said it, he knew he’d made the wrong equine choice. What’s more, he had just handed the answer over to the other side, because, duh, if it’s not the donkey it must be the mule.

To our surprise, the other team, not farm kids, sat there in complete puzzlement, shaking their heads. We could hear some of them muttering, “All animals can reproduce…”

We lost the game anyway. We came in second-to-last at the tournament that day, which I believe was our highest finish that year. We were so excited we never did ask how we managed that feat when we had lost every game that day.

62

Possibly 5 or 6. Geeky sciencey nerd from the get go.

63

I have no idea when I learned this. I grew up in suburbia with no rural connections at all. I thought donkey and mule were two names for the same animal for a long time - kinda like dog/mutt. Even finding out wasn’t much more than “Oh, that’s interesting.”

64

I don’t recall if it was Encyclopedia Brown or not, but I read one of those 5 minute mysteries about a prospecter who missed out on a claim to a gold mine because he delayed claiming it because his mule was pregnant. And whoever the detective was knew the story wasn’t true.

Regards,
Shodan

65

They are???

just kidding - I couldn’t say exactly when I found out, but my grandparents had a neighbor who’d been a mule skinner in WWI and he used to tell we kids all about his adventures with his mules. He was in his '80s when I knew him and still very very sharp-witted. He had some great stories. I wish I remembered more of them.

66

That was the Encyclopedia Brown story. Once again, Bugs Meaney’s plan was foiled.

67

This is one of the advantages of having an older brother. I learned this factoid at a very early age, because anything involving animal sex has to be passed along to a younger brother. It’s a cosmic rule.

68

As a horse crazy kid, I read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on that was equine related. I’m sure I knew this by the 1st or 2nd grade.

69

In the USA, the suffragettes were overshadowed by the WTU. Both had their radical (criminal) elements, both fought for women’s suffrage, in the USA they smashed up bars, in the UK they attacked horse races (rich people’s horses).

70

That’s the where I learned the term “suffragette,” from Mary Poppins. I knew about women’s suffrage well before that, but not that word.