🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <crystal.725914988@glia>, crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal) writes...
>In <1992Dec31.204015.18922@husc3.harvard.edu> mlevin@husc8.harvard.edu (Michael Levin) writes:
> 
> 
>>    Does anyone have any ideas why zebras are striped? Surely in the
>>sense of camouflage, those yellowish african plains call for a
>>monotone antelope-like color. Why are they striped? Please reply to
>>mlevin@husc8.harvard.edu. 
> 
>>Mike Levin
> 
>Tall grasses have light and dark shadows.  Try to find a zebra in the tall
>grasses of some of those plains. :>
>                                            as 
>Crystal
>  ;>
> 

Good question! This is an intriguing topic. I have read one opinion
that zebra's stripes help to camouflage an individual
within a herd. That is, when a herd of of zebras stand together,
it is difficult to tell where one stops and another begins.
     the trait could continue via selfish herd principles.
one 

This hypothesis may be right or wrong, but it leads to the question
of how the predator's vision works, which leads to the question of what
the zebra's main predators are.

I would imagine someone has proposed stripes as a form of sexual
selection, though the lack of sexual dimorphism would seem to
cast doubt on that hypothesis. Anyone?

Then again, the stripes could be camouflage, as Crystal suggested.
Any other theories, biologists?
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*Leslie Lamont Jones          Bitnet and Internet:ljones@utkvx.utk.edu *
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