are zebras white with black stripes or vice versa

#ARE ZEBRAS WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR VICE VERSA SKIN#

These biting flies can carry diseases that are fatal to zebras. In other words, for zebras, the animals’ default state is to produce black hair, making them black with white stripes, according to Brittanica.Ī study published in 2020 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that African horseflies landed less frequently on horses wearing striped or checked rugs than they did on horses wearing solid-colored rugs. A harem of cape mountain zebras (Equus zebra). OK, are you ready for the answer? The production of melanin “shuts down during the development of white hair, but not of black hair,” Caro told Live Science in an email. Zebras’ black fur is chock-full of melanin, but melanin is absent from white fur, in essence, because the follicles that make up the stripes of white hair have “turned off” melanocytes, meaning they don’t churn out pigment. So, a lot of melanin leads to darker colors, like dark brown or black, while less melanin leads to lighter colors, such as hazel or blond, Live Science previously reported. These cells produce a pigment called melanin that determines the color of hair and skin. This could lead us to believe that zebras are white with black stripes, right? But that is not the case, according to a 2005 review in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.Įvery piece of hair on a zebra – both light and dark – grows from a follicle filled with melanocyte cells. Source – “Daniel Fafard (Dreamdan)” CC SA 3.0. This is the largest living wild equid and the most threatened of the three species of zebra. A herd of Grévy’s zebra (Equus grevyi), also known as the imperial zebra. He adds that zebras actually have more light-colored hair than dark, especially on their bellies. So while zebras have black skin, different developmental processes determine their fur color, just like a light-skinned person can have dark hair, Caro said. And there are also the variations we see genetically.

#ARE ZEBRAS WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR VICE VERSA SKIN#

It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic studies have supported it being a subspecies of plains zebra. It had minimal striping on its head, mane, and neck, according to The Quagga Project.īut we still need an answer to the questionĭespite all the differences in stripe patterns, all zebras have the same skin color: black, said Tim Caro, a behavioral and evolutionary ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of California, Davis.Įven still, we have to look at the zebra’s melanocytes, or the cells that produce pigment for their fur, to decide if a zebra is white with black stripes or vice versa. Source – Biodiversity Heritage Library/Frederick York (d.

The image is dated 1870 and is the only specimen photographed alive. Quagga (Equus quagga quagga) is an extinct subspecies of zebra. This zebra was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century by European settler-colonists.

It is worth mentioning that there was a fourth species of zebra called the quagga ( E. And if this is not enough to confuse you, for some zebras, the darker portions of their hide are black, whereas others have browner coloring, and some have stripes only on their bodies but not on their legs. While the stripes on every zebra are unique to each individual, the three species each have a different striping pattern. There are three living species, the Grévy’s zebra ( Equus grevyi), plains zebra ( E. Zebras are African equines of the genus Equus (the same as horses) and belong to the subspecies Hippotigris. Zebras are iconic for their distinctive black and white stripes, but have you ever wondered whether zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Aerial view from a helicopter of a group of Burchell's plains zebras (Equus quagga burchellii), Okavango Delta, Botswana.

Are zebras white with black stripes or vice versa