About 30 miles north of the equator, in central Kenya, Kaia Tombak and her colleagues stood beside a plexiglass box. Tombak, who studies the evolution of animals’ social behavior, was dressed for the ...

The function of zebra stripes have been debated for quite some time. The different hypotheses include: Camouflage — However, predators seemed to find them just fine in all tested settings. Temperature ...

Kenya, Amboseli National Park, close up of zebra stripes. Scientists aren’t sure, but one theory, dubbed the “motion dazzle hypothesis,” suggests that high-contrast patterns create an optical illusion ...

How did the zebra get its stripes? The fashionable patterned coat protects the animal from horsefly bites by disorienting the flies during the landing process, research has shown. But how exactly do ...

Horseflies misjudge landings on zebra patterns, compared with solid gray or black surfaces, which provides evidence for why evolution came up with the black-and-white pattern. Everyone loves zebras.

Zebras' thick, black stripes may have evolved to help these iconic creatures stay cool in the midday African heat, a new study suggests. Many African animals sport some stripes on their bodies, but ...

A zebra foal named Tira drew immediate attention in Kenya’s Maasai Mara when he showed up with white spots instead of stripes. The pattern isn’t a trick of the light or a research tag—it’s a rare ...

A couple years ago, I shared an elegant study about the reasons that zebras are striped (more here). In short, that study found that horseflies (tabanids) and the deadly diseases they transmit were ...

Zebras vary in size depending on the species. Grévy’s zebra is the largest. It is about 4.10 to 5.25 feet at shoulder height and weighs 776 to 992 pounds. The mountain zebra is slightly smaller, and ...