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The Zebra's Stripes, A Personal No-Fly Zone

Posted February 12, 2012 1:49 PM

From Science:

Scientists in Hungary and Sweden say they've found an answer to the age-old question of how the zebra got its stripes. It turns out the pattern may have evolved to repel Africa's biting flies. The researchers discovered this by placing models of patterned zebras next to models of their plainer cousins, horses, and measuring how many flies ended up on each one. Host Scott Simon has more.

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Tornado
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Re: The Zebra's Stripes, A Personal No-Fly Zone

02/12/2012 2:09 PM

Evolution does not have a purpose, and features do not evolve "to do" something. Features "do do" something, but not with advance purpose. If what they do do is beneficial, then natural selection (including sexual selection and breeding selection) can act to propagate and preserve the feature.

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kendall
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Re: The Zebra's Stripes, A Personal No-Fly Zone

02/13/2012 5:43 AM

A known TV Nature program did a segment on zebras, saying the stripes interact with the visual peculiarities of the predator Lions such that when moving together, the stripes blend to form a sight akin to a long wiggling picket fence and the lions can't distinguish any one target to attack.

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English Rose
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Re: The Zebra's Stripes, A Personal No-Fly Zone

02/14/2012 5:07 AM

I always thought that it acted like the dazzle paint on war ships in tropical seas, breaking up the form so the animal is harder for predators to see.

Perhaps this is a dual purpose defence! Ah! the intelligence of the design....<ER scampers off to hide in Del's ultra secret cat nest until the fighting stops>

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