They also tend to run from threat rather than hide. And lions appear to have no trouble eating lots of zebras. Zebras tend to run from threats rather than try to hide Credit: Alamy. He notes that previous studies have just tested if stripes confuse humans, but not lions. So, the question why zebras have stripes have proven very difficult and not without risks — Stephen Cobb has been bitten in the arm and admitted to hospital twice.
Despite the extra vigour of recent work, the answer remains inconclusive. So maybe stripes evolved to solve multiple problems. Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. Ask a Stupid Question Environment.
The truth behind why zebras have stripes. Share using Email. By Yao-Hua Law 11th December Rudyard Kipling playfully wrote that zebras stripes were due to "the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees" falling on its body but are scientists getting closer to the truth? People have been talking about zebra stripes for over a hundred years. When resting at night, zebras lie down while one stands watch to prevent an ambush.
Stripes: White with black or black with white? This is one of the most-asked questions about zebras. So what's up with the stripes? Zebras are generally thought to have white coats with black sometimes brown stripes. That's because if you look at most zebras, the stripes end on their belly and toward the inside of the legs, and the rest is all white. However there had to be a catch, right?
And as it turns out, zebras have black skin underneath their hair. So it depends on how you look at it! So, why the stripes? They serve as a kind of protection from predators!
When zebras are grouped together, their combined stripes make it hard for a lion or leopard to pick out one zebra to chase. Different zebra species have different types of stripes, from narrow to wide. In fact, the farther south on the African plains you travel, the farther apart the stripes on the zebras get!
The basic form of zebras—a large head, sturdy neck, long legs, a dorsal stripe along the spine and down a tasseled tail, and bristly mane—is universal. No zebra, or other wild equid, has a forelock. A mountain zebra has vertical stripes on the neck and torso, which graduate to wider—and fewer—horizontal bars on the haunches.
These units may combine with others to form awe-inspiring herds thousands of head strong, but family members will remain close within the herd. Zebras must be constantly wary of lions and hyenas. A herd has many eyes alert to danger. If an animal is attacked, its family will come to its defense, circling the wounded zebra and attempting to drive off predators. All rights reserved. Common Name: Plains zebras. Scientific Name: Equus quagga. Type: Mammals.
Diet: Herbivore. Group Name: Herd. Size: Height at the shoulder: 3. Weight: to pounds. Size relative to a 6-ft man:. These are the core obsessions that drive our newsroom—defining topics of seismic importance to the global economy. Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend. Zebras are famous for their contrasting black and white stripes—but until very recently no one really knew why they sport their unusual striped pattern.
Since then many ideas have been put on the table but only in the last few years have there been serious attempts to test them. These ideas fall into four main categories: Zebras are striped to evade capture by predators, zebras are striped for social reasons, zebras are striped to keep cool, or they have stripes to avoid attack by biting flies.
Only the last one stands up to scrutiny. And our latest research helps fill in more of the details on why. There are many problems with this idea. And when fleeing from danger, zebras do not behave in ways to maximize any confusion possibly caused by striping, making hypothetical ideas about dazzling predators untenable. Worse still for this idea, the eyesight of lions and spotted hyenas is much weaker than ours; these predators can only resolve stripes when zebras are very close up, at a distance when they can likely hear or smell the prey anyway.
So stripes are unlikely to be of much use in anti-predator defense. Most damaging, zebras are a preferred prey item for lions —in study after study across Africa, lions kill them more than might be expected from their numerical abundance. So stripes cannot be a very effective anti-predator defense against this important carnivore. So much for the evading-predators hypothesis.
What about the idea that stripes help zebras engage with members of their own species?
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