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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question, how

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Speaker 1: do a zebra stripes act as camouflage to humans? A

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Speaker 1: zebras stripes stick out like a sore thumb, so it's

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Speaker 1: hard to imagine that the stripes act as any kind

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Speaker 1: of camouflage. Zoologists believe the stripes offer zebras protection from

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Speaker 1: predators in a couple of different ways. The first is

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Speaker 1: as simple pattern camouflage, much like the military uses in

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Speaker 1: its fatigue designs. The wavy lines of a zebra blend

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Speaker 1: in with the wavy lines of the tall grass around it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that the zebra stripes are black and

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Speaker 1: white and the lines of grass or yellow, brown, or green,

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Speaker 1: because the zebra's main predator, the lion, is color blind.

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Speaker 1: The pattern of the camouflage is much more important than

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Speaker 1: its color when hiding from these predators. If a zebra

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Speaker 1: is standing still in matching surroundings, a lion may overlook

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Speaker 1: it completely. This benefit may help an individual zebra in

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Speaker 1: some situations, but the more significant means of protection has

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Speaker 1: to do with zebra herds. Zebras usually travel in large groups,

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Speaker 1: in which they stay very close to each other. Even

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Speaker 1: with their camouflage pattern, It's highly unlikely that a large

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Speaker 1: gathering of zebras would be able to escape the notice

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Speaker 1: of a lion, but their stripes help them use this

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Speaker 1: large size to their advantage. When all the zebras keep

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Speaker 1: together as a big group, the pattern of each zebra

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Speaker 1: stripes blends in with the stripes of all the zebras

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Speaker 1: around it. This is confusing to the lion, who sees

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Speaker 1: a large, moving striped mass instead of individual zebras. The

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Speaker 1: lion has trouble picking out any one zebra, and so

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have a very good plan of attack. It's

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Speaker 1: hard for the lion to even recognize which way each

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Speaker 1: zebra is moving. Imagine the difference in pursuing one animal

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Speaker 1: and charging into an amorphous blob of animals moving every

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Speaker 1: which way. The lions inability to distinguish zebras also makes

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Speaker 1: it more difficult for it to target and track weaker

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Speaker 1: zebras in the herd. So do zebra stripes confuse zebras

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Speaker 1: as much as they confuse lions. Oddly enough, while making

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Speaker 1: zebras indistinguishable to other animals, zebra stripes actually help zebras

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Speaker 1: recognize each other. Stripe patterns are like zebra fingerprints. Every

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Speaker 1: zebra has a slightly different arrangement. Zoologists believe this is

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Speaker 1: how zebras distinguish who's who in a zebra herd. This

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Speaker 1: certainly has significant benefits. A zebra mare and her full

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Speaker 1: can keep track of each other in a large word,

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Speaker 1: for example, and a zebra can very quickly distinguish its

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Speaker 1: own herd from another. This also helps human researchers because

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Speaker 1: it enables them to track particular zebras in the wild.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast?

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Speaker 1: If so, please send me an email at podcast at

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