Why Zebras Have Stripes

[trottigy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/02/why-the-zebra-has-stripes/?tid=pm_national_pop

 

 

A scientific team headed by Tim Caro, a wildlife biologist at the University of California-Davis, mapped the range of zebras as well as horses and asses, noting striping on their bodies. This was compared to the five hypotheses about the purpose of zebra stripes using variables such as predator ranges, wooded areas, temperatures and distribution of biting flies. The best overlap was with biting flies.

 

“I was amazed by our results,” said Tim Caro in the UC-Davis announcement. “Again and again, there was greater striping on areas of the body in those parts of the world where there was more annoyance from biting flies.”

 

The findings were just published in the journal Nature Communications, and the study supports a previous one done by European researchers in 2012. Scientists used boards to simulate zebra stripes and found that flies tended to stay away from them.

 

And now, this solution breeds another question: Why don’t biting flies like stripes?

 

 

I loved this comment at the bottom:

 

 

Why don't biting flies like stripes???????? 

 

Because they come from checkered pasts. 

 

Now give me the million dollar study grant; I saved everyone a lot of wasted time and effort. 

 

[Qapla]

Interesting that they never mentioned the Quagga .... it would beg even more questions

[timpin]

It's a white horse w/black stripes ... no no no it's a black horse w/white stripes .... no no no it's a white horse - ahhh never mind.

[crazylee]

Interesting! But, how did the horse know to grow stripes?

What scientific tests did it do to know what width of stripe was the optimum for fly protection?

How did it know what color?

How could it have passed those qualities on to it's offspring?

 

They didn't know that they were disproving evolution.

[Dages]

Well, it would be still micro-evolution.

[carlos]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/02/why-the-zebra-has-stripes/?tid=pm_national_pop

 

 

So fly-ridden horses have good reasons to be envious of zebras. Jehovah was so unfair to them!