There is still no definitive answer to this one of nature’s most unfathomable mysteries. In scientific debates – oddly enough, there are specialists to discuss this subject -, the most accepted idea is that the zebra is a black animal with white stripes. This is the theory that American biologists Gilbert Scott and Susan Singer support in their book Developmental Biology. The duo has two main arguments:
1. Evolutionary argument There was a species of zebra, which lived in Africa and became extinct in the 19th century, which only had stripes on the front of its body – the rest was all dark.
2. Geographic argument As zebras originate from Africa, a region of intense heat, the most logical thing is to think that the ancestors of the zebra were more black than white. The black color, in this case, would help to protect the animal from the strong rays of the sun. It is the same function that pigmentation plays in the case of human beings – just remember that it was black men who best adapted to the heat of cracking coconuts on the continent. If the origin of the stripes is uncertain, their function is well known: the alvinegra sequence is an excellent weapon to camouflage the animal. When the zebra is running away from a lion or other predator, the stripes deform the zebra’s silhouette and make it blend in with the landscape, helping the animal to escape the enemy. One last curiosity is that this peculiar coat works like a fingerprint: no two zebras have the same color pattern! Each animal has a different number of stripes, with different thicknesses and unique designs. A made-to-measure garment.
Read too:
– Which animal has the strongest bite?
– What is the origin of the animal game?
– Which cat is the best hunter?