‘Hybrid equine animal with stripes’ NYT Mini Crossword puzzle clues, answer and hints

Have you ever seen a crossbreed between two terrestrial animals to produce superior species? I love biology, and the concept of hybrid fruits and animals has always fascinated me. Today’s NYT Mini Crossword clue is “Hybrid equine animal with stripes,” which challenges your knowledge of hybrid animals.

If today’s NYT Mini Crossword clues give you a hard time, you can use our hints and answers to help you easily solve the word game.

‘Hybrid equine animal with stripes’ NYT Oct. 31 Mini Crossword hints and answer

• Hint 1: The answer is a species that does not occur naturally in the wild.
• Hint 2: The five-letter solution is the name for the offspring of a zebra and a horse.
• Hint 3: It starts with the letter “Z.”
• Hint 4: The solution has a zebra’s natural hardiness and disease resistance, making them harder to tame.

Let’s jump in and reveal the answer.

The answer to one across in the Oct. 31 New York Times Mini Crossword is “ZORSE.” The Zorse is a cross-bred between a zebra and a horse. Humans deliberately bred them, mainly for specific purposes like experimentation or exhibitions. The clue refers to an equine animal, the members of the horse family, and the stripes refer to the zebra. 

‘Hybrid equine animal with stripes’ NYT Mini Crossword difficulty rating

Even though I am pretty good at biology, it took me a little while to understand that the clue refers to Zorse. The popular Hybrid animals are Mules, Zonkey, Liger, and more, so it might be quite difficult for people to understand the answer. 

If you understood that the clue talks about a horse and a zebra, chances are you would be very close to solving the clue without needing any help by combining the animals. So, I’d give it a five out of five for difficulty.

NYT Mini Crossword (Oct. 31) answers

Across

• 1A Hybrid equine animal with stripes — ZORSE
• 6A “Fingers crossed!” — I HOPE
• 7A Record company — LABEL
• 8A Shoe that can be decorated with pieces called Jibbitz — CROC
• 9A Wearing many ___ (versatile at work) — HATS

Down

• 1D Zippo, nada, nothin’ — ZILCH
• 2D Catherine of “Beetlejuice” — OHARA
• 3D Halloween costume with a cardboard box and aluminum foil — ROBOT
• 4D Tech product details — SPECS
• 5D Sushi fish served cooked — EEL

How to play other word games like the NYT Mini Crossword

When the NYT Mini Crossword word games feel challenging, you can play the LA Times and Washington Post crosswords to level up your word games. But if you have enough traditional crosswords, you can try Strands and Spelling Bee to increase your stock of words.