View allAll Photos Tagged zebra
You don't think of Zebras as endangered, but the Grevy's Zebra is unfortunately on the list. At Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, Glenrose, Texas, USA, April 2014
Pretty pleased with this one. Well worth laying in a ditch for 20 minutes :-)
Cabarceno Nature Park, Spain.
Zebra are fun to watch. They bite and kick each other, nestle together, stand along side each other sometimes resting their heads on each other, roll in the dust and have other assorted antics. I'm not sure if these guys were goofing around but it wasn't a real fight, just showing their spirit.
Tarangire National park, Tanzania.
The two males initiate the engagement, rearing up and battering each other with front hooves.
Using both hooves and teeth to fight, a variety of wounds or injuries could potentially be inflicted.
These play-fights will help prepare these young males for the real thing when they attempt to establish harems of their own.
The story goes that zebra stripe patterns may help protect the animals from attack, by creating a visual natural defense. According to this theory, the stripes confuse predators attacking a zebra herd by making it difficult to distinguish one animal from the others. If only there were an easy way to demonstrate how that might be true in a photograph! (Plains Zebra - Equus quagga, Washinton National Zoological Park). French spelling is: "Moiré"
P.S.: I'm not sure lions subscribe to this theory ;<)
Zebras, horses and wild asses are all equids. Zebras have horse-like bodies, but their manes are made of short, erect hair, their tails are tufted at the tip and their coats are striped.
No animal has a more distinctive coat than the zebra. Each animal's stripes are as unique as fingerprints—no two are exactly alike. Zebras are social animals that spend time in herds. They graze together, and even groom one another.
There are three species of zebra:
1. Burchell's or the plains zebra is most common.
2. The mountain zebra
3,Grévy's zebra is the largest type
Each has its own general pattern. The stripes act as camouflage. The patterns make it difficult for predators to identify just one animal from a running herd, and can distort distance, and may also help zebras recognize one another because of their uniqueness.
They have excellent hearing and eyesight and can run at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour and a powerful kick that can cause serious injury to a predator, like a lion.
Pix.by.PegiSue
Taken @ SanDiegoZoo/Safari Park
2 zebres au parc de Sigean (France).
Les zèbres se trouvent principalement en Afrique centrale et australe. Ces animaux se caractérisent par des bandes de rayures verticales noires et blanches. Bien que la phylogénie des équidés soit peu connue, ce groupe est manifestement paraphylétique, c'est-à-dire que si tous ces animaux descendent bien d'une espèce commune, toutes les espèces descendantes de celle-ci ne sont pas que des zèbres. Il y a aussi des chevaux et des ânes qui sont plus ou moins proches de chacune de ces espèces.
Les zèbres sont avant tout reconnaissables aux bandes noires et blanches de leur pelage.
Une légende africaine demande si le zèbre est blanc à rayures noires ou noir à rayures blanches. Cette question a généré de nombreuses légendes ou réponses fantaisistes mais des explications plus scientifiques existent.
On ignore encore exactement pour quelle raison les rayures apparaissent.
Dans la savane, le zèbre est très visible, ce qui tendrait à être une exception à la règle du camouflage. On peut donc se demander raisonnablement quels avantages apportent ces rayures.
Dans les années 1970, des recherches ont pointé le fait que la mouche tsé-tsé, responsable de la maladie du sommeil à laquelle les zèbres sont plus sensibles que d'autres animaux sauvages, est attirée par la vue de larges zones monochromes : les rayures permettraient ainsi de se protéger du parasite. Il est à ce sujet significatif de constater les zones de répartition des zèbres et de ces glossines coïncident exactement et que les rayures s'estompent chez les populations moins exposées au parasitisme par les trypanosomes. Des travaux publiés en 2012 viennent confirmer cette hypothèse, en démontrant que les taon sont en effet plus attirés par les monochromes, et que l'effet est plus particulièrement efficace pour des rayures semblables à celle des zèbres.
Les rayures auraient aussi un effet stroboscopique sur les prédateurs. Lorsque tout un troupeau s'enfuit, les raies des divers individus se mélangent, rendant flou le contour d'un animal aux yeux d'un lion, par exemple. Le même principe serait à l'origine du camouflage Dazzle.
Enfin, certains chercheurs attribuent à ces couleurs un rôle social, la disposition des bandes permettant la reconnaissance des individus entre eux.
Zebras are several species of African equids (horse family) united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns, unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds. Unlike their closest relatives, horses and asses, zebras have never been truly domesticated.
There are three species of zebras: the plains zebra, the Grévy's zebra and the mountain zebra. The plains zebra and the mountain zebra belong to the subgenus Hippotigris, but Grevy's zebra is the sole species of subgenus Dolichohippus. The latter resembles an ass, to which it is closely related, while the former two are more horse-like. All three belong to the genus Equus, along with other living equids.
The unique stripes of zebras make them one of the animals most familiar to people. They occur in a variety of habitats, such as grasslands, savannas, woodlands, thorny scrublands, mountains, and coastal hills. However, various anthropogenic factors have had a severe impact on zebra populations, in particular hunting for skins and habitat destruction. Grevy's zebra and the mountain zebra are endangered. While plains zebras are much more plentiful, one subspecies, the quagga, became extinct in the late 19th century - though there is currently a plan, called the Quagga Project, that aims to breed zebras that are phenotypically similar to the quagga in a process called breeding back.
Plains zebras have a wide range in east and southern Africa. They usually live in treeless grasslands and savanna woodlands and are absent from deserts, rainforests, and wetlands. This species’ habitat is shrinking, however, and plains zebras are now extinct in Burundi and Lesotho.
Etosha National Park, Namibia, Africa
Etosha is the most famous national park in Northern Namibia. The park surrounds the Etosha salt pan, which attracs animals, particularly in the drier winter months, because it is a source of water in a very dry land. Antelopes, giraffes, elephants, zebras, ostriches, hyenas and warthog are commonly spotted
(travel-blog: lyooatravelblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/namibia/)
Just loved the shapes and textures in the zebra skin and of course I am totally jealous of the eyelashes
Or it could have been a muddled huddle, or a huddled muddle. Sorry - couldn't resist. White stripes on black are the males, black stripes on white are the females; or is it the other way round? ;-) I have to admit I have this printed large and hanging on the wall and the more I look at it the more I like it.
Burchell's Zebra (Equus quagga burchellii), Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Botswana; Co-ordinates: -19.14876944,23.8001833; D3S_Khwai River Lodge 2010 Aug 12_1046