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Zebras are the cute animals living on grasslands. Have you been wondering if they have black stripes with white body or white striples with black body? And, what are the stripes for anyway?

Revealing the mystery, zebras have black body and white stripes. According to Wendy Zukerman, the zebras are completely black in their early embryo stages, while the white stripes appear later on.

Also, Lisa Smith has reported that the black color is the pigment activation and the white color is the inhibition, meaning that the color of fur is orginally black while the white fur simply lacks the pigment.

Although scientists are not sure why zebras have the alternating stripes, there are some theories

Having a higher albedo, the alternating pattern of fur can deflect up to seventy percent of heat during daytime. Since a lot of zebras live in high temperature enviroment, the fur can reduce a lot of heat from the sun.

Moreover, one theory says that the alternating pattern can act as a camouflage to confuse the predators. The Stripes can form some kind of illusions to intimidate the predators like lions or hyenas. The illusion is especially effective when the zebras are in a great number, so the pattern may make them look like a giant creasure.

While there is little evidence for camouflage, a new finding Justin Marshall points out is that the pattern can get rid of horseflies becasue it “provides an unattractive surfaces” for horseflies to land on. In africa, there are a lot of horseflies, so a pattern that prevents horseflies would result in less disease and healthier zebras.

A short video about horsefly theroy.

So the black zebras with white furs stills have their alternating pattern remained mystery. More studies are need to to support the theories such as camouflage and horsefly.

 Source

Buzzle.com.

How Stuff Works.

New Scientists.