HYBRID ANIMAL

What do you get when you cross a female horse with a male donkey?

Answer: A mule.

No joke. This ain't a punchline.

A mule resembles its mama, a horse, in height, length and shape of its neck and length of its coat.

Its daddy, a donkey, passes on its thick head, long ears, short main, coarse coat, thin limbs and small hooves. Mules are slightly larger than donkeys thanks to mama.

Unlike ma and pa, mules are sterile because they have an uneven number of chromosomes. Mammals need an even number of chromosomes to divide into pairs for reproduction.

And in case you're wondering why we're mulling over mules, it's in the spirit of Friday, Saturday and Sunday's mule shows.

Source: themules.net, ultimatehorsesite.com

CREEPY, CRAWLY THINGS

Farm critters aren't the only creatures you'll find at the stock show.

The Entomology Club from Colorado State University will host a creepy-crawly display with live insects and spiders. The display is just one of many booths CSU is hosting during the stock show.

If insects and spiders don't get your bug-squishing juices flowing, the display also includes a cockroach racetrack.

* Where: Exposition Hall, third floor

* When: Saturday

GRAND CHAMPION ON DISPLAY

It's a day that makes the housekeeping staff at the Brown Palace Hotel nervous. Very nervous.

This year's National Western Stock Show grand champion steer has an 11 a.m. lunch date today at the venerable Denver hotel, and, no, he's not on the menu. Yet.

It's a tradition that dates to 1945 when Dan Thornton, who would later became governor of Colorado, sold two Hereford bulls for $50,000 each and then took the bulls into the Brown's lobby to have their pictures taken.

Then it's back to the stock show for a date with the auctioneer.