WILD ASS (פֶּ֫רֶא, H7230, עָרﯴד, H6871, עֲרָדָא, wild ass, all Eng. VSS; [עָרﯴד, H6871, swift ass RSV, Job 39:5]. The tr. is undoubtedly correct. עָרﯴד, H6871, seems to be an alternative name, sometimes tr. the untamed). The name preferred for the Biblical wild ass is onager (Equus hermionus), and it is rightly classed as “half-ass,” belonging to a species distinct from the true wild ass from which the donkey is derived. The onager once had a wide distribution, divided into several geographical types, extending from the borders of Europe and Pal. in the W through to India and Mongolia. Job describes its habitat precisely: “the steppe for his home and the salt land for his dwelling” (Job 39:6). By the mid-19th cent. onagers had long disappeared from Pal. but were still fairly common in Iraq. This type is now extinct and the only survivors of the species are found in India and Central Asia, where their status is hard to determine. Although the onager was long considered untamable there is now clear evidence that the Sumerians used it for drawing chariots; this is amply illustrated in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (c. 2,500 b.c.) and the identification has been confirmed by a study of the bones found at Tell Asmar, though there is nothing to show whether they were ever fully domesticated or just captured when young, as elephants are. They were bridled quite differently from horses; this suggests that the use of onagers as draught animals may have been based on experience with oxen, rather than as an imitation of horses in nearby countries, if they were already domesticated there. Onagers were abandoned as soon as the more efficient horse became available. The onager was almost white, with yellow flanks and a narrow black dorsal stripe. The tail was tufted. See Ass.

Bibliography F. E. Zeuner, A History of Domesticated Animals (1963) ch. 14.