A very interesting paper has been published by Brenda Larison and her colleagues in the Royal Society Open Science Journal to answer common and frequent questions:
Why Zebras has got stripes? Why are their role?
Many explanations have been suggested, including social cohesion, thermoregulation, predation evasion and avoidance of biting flies. Identifying the associations between phenotypic and environmental factors is essential for testing these hypotheses and substantiating existing experimental evidence.
In contrast to recent findings, we found no evidence that striping may have evolved to escape predators or avoid biting flies. Instead, we found that temperature successfully predicts a substantial amount of the stripe pattern variation observed in plains zebra.
Figure 2. Predicted levels of hind leg stripe thickness (left) and torso stripe definition (right), from a random forest model based on 16 populations. Hind legstripethickness is best predicted by BIO3 and BIO11. Torsostripe definition is best predicted by BIO3, BIO11 and BIO13.
The full article is available to download HERE.
Between Thorn Bushes and Claws 