Mysore: The four zebras in Mysore Zoo on Wednesday got their names, thanks to Mysore maharani Pramoda Devi Wadiyar, who picked up two names for them from the names suggested while she named two of them on her own.

‘Dazzle’ and ‘Dawn’ were the names she named each of male and female. When she picked up from among 350 names suggested by the public, the other two zebras got their names– ‘Sudheer’ and ‘Riddhi’.

This is the first time that the conservation centre went in for selection of names through drawing of lots. While the zoo had planned to get names for them through lottery, the maharani chose to name the two of them. A zoo official said they had got about 350 entries from the public and they had included all the names suggested.

The four zebras that checked into the Mysore facility on April 26 from Israel are aged between 12 and 18 months. Since the conservation centre with highest footfalls among zoos in India had got the prized possession after two decades, they wanted to name their specially and wanted a VIP to do the honours, an official stated. The zoo logs 30.05 lakh visitors annually.