Zorses are real, but it doesn't look like the one in Heartland season 16 is

After a painfully long wait, Netflix finally added Heartland season 16 to its platform on June 1, 2024. Once the 15-episode season dropped, tons of fans immediately swarmed the streamer to binge-watch the new installment in its entirety. Of course, every time a new season is released, a bunch of questions start circulating all over the internet. One question in particular concerns one of the animals in an episode. In an episode this season, a zorse is shown. However, people want to know if the show actually used a real zorse. Here's what we know.

In Heartland season 16 episode 6 titled "In the Wild," Amy rescues an unusual animal from an abandoned zoo and brings it back to Heartland to try to tame it. That animal turns out to be a zorse, which Amy describes to Parker as being a half-horse, half-zebra. This is true. A zorse is a real animal that is the offspring of a zebra and horse. However, it doesn't look like the one they used in the show is real.

Zorses are known for having prominent stripes primarily on their necks, legs, and rumps. While the zorse in Heartland has stripes on these areas of its body, they don't look real. The animal looks like it's a White Spanish horse with painted black stripes. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that the show has painted an animal. I'll be honest. It looks like a bad makeup job. It's unclear if the crew was able to get a real zorse for the show, but our guess is that they couldn't, so they used a regular horse instead and just spray-painted it to look like a zorse.

Since zorses are typically harder to tame and harder to handle than horses, maybe having a real one on set would've been too dangerous. But honestly, it doesn't really matter if a real zorse was used in the show because it's a TV show at the end of the day. However, I will say that if they weren't able to get a real zorse, the makeup department could've done a better job at painting the animal they had.

Heartland season 16 is now streaming on Netflix.