You may have already seen zebras with their attractive stripes. However, do you know why they have those stripes, or do they all have similar ones? Let us discuss this below.
Do All Zebras Have Similar Stripes?
Although many people may think that a zebra is a white animal with black stripes, many scientists have discovered that a zebra is actually an animal that is black in color and has white colored stripes on its body.
Similar to our fingerprints, the stripes on a zebra are completely unique. No two zebras have the same kind of pattern. But do you know why they have stripes in the first place?
Why Do Zebras Have Stripes?
Whether running across the forest or roaming around the zoo, the zebra is a unique animal that sticks out. The black-and-white pattern of this unique animal could not be more obvious. However, that might not be the actual case when it comes to the predators of a zebra.
In the open forest, the main predator of a zebra is a lion. Lion is an animal that is famous as a color-blind animal.
Scientists who study animals and their behaviors, known as zoologists, believe that a zebra’s black and white pattern is a specific kind of camouflage that helps this animal hide from its predators.
Imagine that you can only see the color black, shades of grey, and white, so a solid and dark-colored horse standing in the tall grass of light color would be very obvious. However, a zebra’s stripe can help it blend in properly with brush and grasses, making it much harder to see.
Some biologists even believe that a zebra’s stripe may be useful when a zebra needs to run in a herd.
When many zebras run or move together, their black and white stripes could look like a large running animal. This unique illusion may create confusion, making it much harder for them to locate a single zebra to attack.
However, recent studies have created doubts regarding this popular theory of camouflaging. Many researchers have discovered that many other grazing mammals in Africa have not developed this striping feature to confuse their powerful predators.
Instead, many researchers have discovered that those stripes may have two different purposes, such as deterring biting flies and proper regulation of body temperature.
In a study about African zebras, many researchers found that stripes can correlate closely with temperature and also precipitation. This resulted in their doubts about the camouflage theory, so they started to look for other reliable explanations.
Although they cannot draw several strong conclusions, scientists now believe that air can move much faster over black stripes than those white ones. Hence, it can cause the air to swirl where those two stripes meet, eventually cooling the zebra’s skin.
Some even believe that zebras in hotter areas can successfully deter the biting and disease-causing flies, like horseflies and tsetse flies, with the help of their stripes.
Therefore, in this article, we have learned different types of interesting facts about a zebra and its attractive black-and-white stripes. For some extra information, you can see our website.
I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. Here to help you with play-based learning activities for kids. ( Check my Next startup Cledemy.Com)
