![]() She made them wear rugby shirts on which she had sewed black-and-white stripes and encouraged her “experimental animals” to crawl around on their hands and knees in the sun. The Cobbs then moved to England and without direct access to research animals, Alison enlisted the help of her three daughters, aged 8, 9 and 10. The Cobbs had spent many years living in sub-Saharan Africa and were always amazed by how much time zebras spent grazing in the blazing heat of the day-for far more hours than the antelopes living in the same area. Unlike camouflage, which allows prey to blend into surroundings, “motion dazzle” masks movement, confusing predators about direction and speed. Stephen Cobb, measured the temperature differences between the black stripes and the white stripes on two zebras living in their natural habitats in Kenya, Africa-something that hadn’t been tried before. In a study published on June 13, 2019, in the Journal of Natural History, the scientific publication of the British Natural History Museum, amateur naturalist and former biology technician Alison Cobb and her husband, zoologist Dr. A lot of theories have been put forth, such as they’ve evolved for camouflage, to confuse the vision of biting flies, to bewilder predators with “motion dazzle” or that they’re a means of identification among zebras themselves.īut now, new research postulates that zebra stripes may create air flows that provide the animals with a kind of natural air-conditioning system that helps them cool off in the heat of the African sun. Why zebras have stripes has been a matter for scientific debate for decades. ![]() As the world continues to warm, we might be able to learn a lot from them. We’re still learning about zebras and the reasons why they have their beautiful stripes.
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