Will a zebra turn solid color if its hair is shaved?

Review expert: Zeng Shenming, professor of the Department of Animal Reproduction and Developmental Sciences, China Agricultural University

First, let me ask you a question: Is the zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes? This picture is of course not real. Source: Internet picture

The answer to this question will be kept a secret. In our understanding, most animals on the grassland have body colors similar to their environment, and they are as low-key as they can be. However, the black and white stripes of the zebra are like a light bulb in the dark night on the yellow and green grassland. Source: pixabay

Why is there such a special case as the zebra, which is clearly black and white? Doesn't the zebra's eye-catching appearance worry about being discovered by predators?

Conjecture about zebra stripes

Zebra is the general name for animals in the subgenus Hippotigris of the genus Equus of the family Equidae in the order Perissodactyla. There are three existing zebra species, namely the plains zebra (E. quagga), the Grevy's zebra (E. grevyi) and the mountain zebra (E. zebra). The plains zebra has obvious stripes on its abdomen, while the Grevy's zebra and the mountain zebra have no stripes on their abdomens ; the Grevy's zebra's stripes are more even and slender, and there is a vertical line on its back that extends from the shoulder to the tail; the mountain zebra is characterized by horizontal stripes on its back. Plains zebra source丨pixabay Grevy's zebra source丨pixabay Mountain zebra source丨Baidu Encyclopedia

Due to habitat destruction and wanton hunting by humans, Grevy's zebra and mountain zebra are currently listed as endangered species. The zebras we often see on TV are basically plains zebras. Among plains zebras, there was a subspecies called "quagga" (Equus quagga quagga), also known as "Bai's zebra" and "quasibird zebra", which became extinct in the 19th century. Quagga portrait source: Wikipedia

There are many stripes on the zebra, and each one has different stripes. In fact, the skin of the zebra is actually black, and the black and white stripes we see are the zebra's hair. The hair follicles in these hairs are full of melanocytes. In the zebra's black striped hair, the melanocytes will produce melanin, forming dark hair. However, in the white striped hair, the channels for the melanocytes in the hair follicles to produce melanin are closed, so it appears white. Therefore, the color of zebra hair was originally black, and the white color is the stripes formed after evolutionary selection. Source: pixabay

There is no clear research to prove why zebras have stripes, but there are some speculations.

1. Avoid predators. Some people believe that zebras are social animals that usually live in groups. When they gather together, the stripes on their bodies can confuse hunters, making it difficult for them to identify a single individual for hunting.

But this statement is not accurate after research. In the journal "PLOS ONE", scientists from the University of California measured the distance range at which lions and humans can see zebra stripes clearly in different environments. They found that zebra stripes cannot blend well with the environment, so even if lions are less capable of recognizing zebra stripes, they can still capture zebra information with the help of smell and hearing. The left side is the human perspective, and the right side is the lion perspective. Source: Journal "PLOS ONE"

2. Social recognition. Every zebra has a different texture, so different stripes may be a tool for zebras to recognize each other, helping them to identify their companions in the wild.

3. Lower body temperature. Some people believe that black absorbs heat and white does not, but zebra stripes are black and white, and the temperature rise difference can form convection, which can help take away heat.

However, this claim was refuted in the famous journal Scientific Reports . The researchers wrapped barrels of different shapes with leather of different colors and then used infrared imaging technology to observe the temperature inside the barrels. They found that the zebra stripes had no obvious advantage in cooling. In the thermal imaging image, the darker the red, the higher the temperature, and the darker the blue, the lower the temperature.

Source: Journal Scientific Reports

4. Helps repel insects. Compared with the above conjectures, the conjecture that "stripes defend against mosquitoes" is much more reliable and has more scientific research evidence. Stripes help animals resist mosquitoes . The stripes repel insects hypothesis holds that complex patterns such as black and white are less popular with insects than single colors. Is this true? Tim Caro, a biologist at the University of California, conducted a study to observe how solid-colored horses and zebras get along with horseflies in the same environment. Under camera recording, they found that there was not much difference in the number of horseflies attracted to solid-colored horses and zebras, but the number of horseflies that stayed on solid-colored horses was far greater than that on zebras. Source: the conversation.com

Later, they conducted another experiment, letting a horse wear different styles of coats: black, white, and striped. According to the data, the striped coat still attracted the least number of horseflies. Scientists analyzed that the black and white stripes may cause visual errors in horseflies, disrupting their normal movement and preventing them from landing on the zebra; or the horseflies may mistake the zebra's black stripes for trees and the white stripes for gaps, and the horseflies "pass through the gaps" but actually hit the zebra. Source: Caro et al (2019) PLOS ONE 14(2): e0210831

In nature, there are also some animals with bright and high-contrast stripes like zebras, such as the okapi, which has similar black and white stripes on its buttocks. Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

At present, people’s research on zebra stripes has not been completed. There is a lot of imperceptible information in nature, and discovering the special rules behind this information is a very interesting and fascinating thing, isn’t it?