Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question, how
Speaker 1: do a zebra stripes act as camouflage to humans? A
Speaker 1: zebras stripes stick out like a sore thumb, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine that the stripes act as any kind
Speaker 1: of camouflage. Zoologists believe the stripes offer zebras protection from
Speaker 1: predators in a couple of different ways. The first is
Speaker 1: as simple pattern camouflage, much like the military uses in
Speaker 1: its fatigue designs. The wavy lines of a zebra blend
Speaker 1: in with the wavy lines of the tall grass around it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that the zebra stripes are black and
Speaker 1: white and the lines of grass or yellow, brown, or green,
Speaker 1: because the zebra's main predator, the lion, is color blind.
Speaker 1: The pattern of the camouflage is much more important than
Speaker 1: its color when hiding from these predators. If a zebra
Speaker 1: is standing still in matching surroundings, a lion may overlook
Speaker 1: it completely. This benefit may help an individual zebra in
Speaker 1: some situations, but the more significant means of protection has
Speaker 1: to do with zebra herds. Zebras usually travel in large groups,
Speaker 1: in which they stay very close to each other. Even
Speaker 1: with their camouflage pattern, It's highly unlikely that a large
Speaker 1: gathering of zebras would be able to escape the notice
Speaker 1: of a lion, but their stripes help them use this
Speaker 1: large size to their advantage. When all the zebras keep
Speaker 1: together as a big group, the pattern of each zebra
Speaker 1: stripes blends in with the stripes of all the zebras
Speaker 1: around it. This is confusing to the lion, who sees
Speaker 1: a large, moving striped mass instead of individual zebras. The
Speaker 1: lion has trouble picking out any one zebra, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a very good plan of attack. It's
Speaker 1: hard for the lion to even recognize which way each
Speaker 1: zebra is moving. Imagine the difference in pursuing one animal
Speaker 1: and charging into an amorphous blob of animals moving every
Speaker 1: which way. The lions inability to distinguish zebras also makes
Speaker 1: it more difficult for it to target and track weaker
Speaker 1: zebras in the herd. So do zebra stripes confuse zebras
Speaker 1: as much as they confuse lions. Oddly enough, while making
Speaker 1: zebras indistinguishable to other animals, zebra stripes actually help zebras
Speaker 1: recognize each other. Stripe patterns are like zebra fingerprints. Every
Speaker 1: zebra has a slightly different arrangement. Zoologists believe this is
Speaker 1: how zebras distinguish who's who in a zebra herd. This
Speaker 1: certainly has significant benefits. A zebra mare and her full
Speaker 1: can keep track of each other in a large word,
Speaker 1: for example, and a zebra can very quickly distinguish its
Speaker 1: own herd from another. This also helps human researchers because
Speaker 1: it enables them to track particular zebras in the wild.
Speaker 1: Do you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast?
Speaker 1: If so, please send me an email at podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, go to how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and be sure to check out the brain stuff
Speaker 1: blog on the how stuffworks dot com home page