What is this creature?
Dave and I have been calling this creature girebra. It has a mane like a giraffe, and the same colors, but the stripes? What is this hybrid???? We took it to my OB appt today figuring the well-educated nurses and staff might hazard a guess 
One guy totally declined guessing, and the nurse guessed a giraffe but agreed the stripes were rather confusing. It was funny – I had Sam ask her what the toy was while I was weighing in. She got distracted and I stepped off the scale saying I was way lighter than the truth hee hee! Perfect! I told her the real answer, laughing at my near-coup with the weigh-in!
This OB escapade was filled with laughter! And forgotten in all this fun is the fact that Girebra doesn’t have giraffe legs! So gramma inadvertantly called it a tiger. Do tigers have manes?
Well, Allison, frankly I’m disappointed. With all the time you spent next the the WAP in San Diego . . .
It’s obvious that it is a failed attempt at making a Okapi which resembles both a zebra and a giraffe.
Crying baby – must depart.
Never heard of an Okapi, you smart thing, you! But a little research reveals we need to do further checking. So far, I can’t see a mane on Okapi. Also, Alli, would you and Sam please have mystery animal stick out its tongue. Seems the most giraffe-like feature of the okapi is the long black tongue. Also, if you wouldn’t mind, get a little DNA for Okapi “individuals having 2n=45 were more common than those having the expected 2n=46. This anomaly has been related to the Robertsian fusion phenomenon.” http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Okapia_johnstoni.html
Ok, ok I admit. I looked it up on WAP’s website. *sigh*
Oh wow. You slay me. Fine then my guess is a striped hyena. Allison, will you kindly check to see if the animal is a hermaphrodite?
It is clearly not a hyena as they have paws and this toy obviously has hooves. Okapi have hooves, but the striping is not uniform across the body and the color scheme is wrong. See a photo here http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:GSoTQfrtyZo4HM:www.atpm.com/7.06/southern-california/images/okapi.jpg.
Likely what you have is a toy maker’s fantasy, though it could be an off-color zebra as they do have manes, hooves and stripes, but are white and black or white and brown and not yellow or tan. Didn’t the toy come with a tag or is this just too obvious a place to look for the animal name?
Thank you for all your comments! The mystery deepens…I followed Alden’s suggestion and checked the tag just in case it cleared everything up. I found a website – http://www.noukies.com. So I went this morning. Our creature must have been discontinued. However, the company kindly holds each model in reserve for two years so you can replace your child’s beloved toy if necessary. I used the drop-down list at this page (http://www.noukies.com/sos/nssv_view?keyword=ZEBRE)
and was astonished to see so many options! Included in the list were emu, donkey, tiger, giraffe and zebra. So I checked everything that could possibly be our creature and I think they honestly intended it to be a zebra. But why cream colored? Perhaps we do need some genetic testing to see who the parents are?
Here is a note I just received from the manufacturer…
Aloha Mrs Allison Krug,
The paternity test told you :
It is a Zebra !!
Kind Regards
Chantal