If you spend time around horses or files, you might want to invest in some zebra print.
By JoAnna Klein
What's black,white and striped all over ——except for its head?
Horses wearing zebra coats on a fram in Britain.
The animals weren't attending a masquerade. They were dressed for studies investigating a mystery that has puzzled scientists for more than a century.
With solid coats of brown or gray, "most mammals are pretty boring," said Tim Caro, who studies animal coloration at the University of California, Davis, and is co-author of a study published on Wednesday in PLOS One. " so when you see these bold patterns like on a giraffe or zebra, as a biologist you say, Why?"
At least since the days when Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were theorizing about evolution, scientists animal print. It's been called camouflage to confuse big predators, an identity signal to other zebras and a kind of wearable air conditioner. Now most scientists agree that the function of a zebra's stripes is to ward off biting flies that can carry deadly diseases.
But waht exactly is it about a zebra's wardrobe that flies don't like?
The answer to that question has been hard to find. Zebras in the wild are not easy to get close to. So Dr. Caro and a colleague, Martin How, went to HillLivery, a horse farm moonlighting as an orphanage and a conservation hub for captive zebras near the University of Bristol in Britain. With their students, they observed and filmed horse flies trying to bite zebra. They also dressed some horses in zebra print to see it helped them avoid fly bites.
