Talk:Zebra

Quality Standards

Please ensure your edits do not break the page. I feel the page may also need to be reviewed to move some sentences into more appropriate sections. Lossy 16:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Legality of "natural zebra hides"

Are all Zebra species endangered or only some? Because I notice some businesses advertised on google claim to sell "natural zebra hide" products. Just curious if this means some are not endandered (or the companies are full of crap in their advertising), or if something illegal is going on that should be reported...

The way to tell a male from a female

Lunkwil

l,It is only YOUR OPINION the way to tell a male from a female is a bad . Perhaps you should not be so dictatorial, overbearing and arrogant to think that someone else might have another opinion.

Lighten up!

Color of the Stripes

This is a Question Answer!!! Maybe this is silly, but what color are the stripes? Is the Zebra purple with yellow stripes or yellow with purplestripes. Surely there must be a dominant color for the zebra and the other is the stripe?

It is said that the skin of the zebra ia black, however hairs are white where they make white straps. Therefore the answer is zebra is black with white straps. Further, these straps are unique for each zebra like our finger prints. (PK 06:34, 4 June 2006 (UTC))

All of these make sense, but why does the article say Zebras are white with black stripes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.97.20.102 (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Exactly, the article says white with black stripes but its supporting text (number 1) says the exact opposite, I would support changing the text to black with white stripes.

Ah, the eternal question! Actually, neither is really correct... zebras are simply striped all over (Horses with dark skin are not "black" regardless of their coat color either...). If you consider the Quagga you'll find that the original color is brown.

Thus, technically, zebras are brown with white-black-white stripes, but the brown background color has - in the living zebras - usually been entirely replaced with a pattern of broader and ever broader stripes. The "typical" Burchell's Zebra (see for example here) are specimens where the stripes are less wide, and some of the original background color is still visible. Dysmorodrepanis 18:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The claim in the footnote "zebras are normally black animals" is... well, provide me an evolutionary scenario that's plausible and I'm gonna believe it. Pattern anomalies in living zebras are no proof of anything save the fact that it's harder to produce no melanin at all than to produce a visible amount of it - a black panther does not mean that leopards are black with tan pattern! A brown horse evolving into a black one and then getting white stripes, and all this on the African savanna is the evolutionary equivalent of the Green Party candidate getting elected to PotUS in 2008: won't happen. If the lions don't get a black horse on the savanna, the heatstoke will.

Even Gould could be mistaken by the fallacy that a two-color pattern has to mean a background color and a pattern color, and not a two-color pattern entirely covering the background. No doubt this would have amused him very much. But think of tortoiseshell cats. Same phenomenon: the concept of "background color" vs "pattern color" does not apply in the first place - the pattern has entirely taken over. Dysmorodrepanis 18:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Riding a zebra

can zebra ever be trained to be ridden? why is that one never sees it?

thanks.

Xah P0lyglut 10:10, 2003 Nov 29 (UTC)

Zebras do not have a suitable temprment. The can be tamed and seem broken to the task, but then suddenly attack with teeth or hooves, utterly without warning. Tannin

Irrelevant passage

Removed irrelevant passage, not sure if user was a vandal or just confused:

"Those who have travelled in South Africa and spent some of their time in the province of KwaZulu/Natal, might have been fortunate enough to have seen something of the colourful beadwork for which the Zulu in that part of the country are well known. Decorative beadwork is sold at many outlets in the region and in major centres throughout the countery, where some of these beaded trinkets have been offered to souvenir huners as "Zulu love letters". To appreciate the true significance of traditional Zulu beadwork, however, one has to understand how effectively the Zulu have integrated social values into their arts and crafts. Traditional colours, colour combinations and patterns are still found in modern Zulu beadwork but the real eloquence is rapidly subsiding under the pressures of urbanization and culture change"

Sayeth 14:11, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

NEWS

There is no errors

Alisha march 5th 2007

Pictures

At the moment, there are a lot of pictures. The flow of the text is disrupted. Can we choose? JFW | T@lk 10:54, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, too many perhaps but instead of choosing I've moved one up and to the left: it works for me. Jimp 04:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

How the zebra got its stripes

Surprising how little input there's been into this article, as the subject of how the Zebra got his stripes is quite an interesting one. The theory put forward here (and it is only a theory, one among many) is a weak one and not widely supported:

"The stripes have a cooling effect due to convection currents."

I'm not an expert in this field, but if black and white stripes had any significant cooling properties, humans would be using them in industry all over the place. Other theories (also weak, but worth mentioning) are: camouflage (long grass); creating a blur of stripes to confuse lions while running, making it harder to judge their leap; and having a similarly optically confusing effect as seen from a distance, distorted by heat currents. A newer and much more interesting theory (all others are pure guesswork and don't stand up to scientific scritiny) is that of protection from the Tsetse fly. Simple experiments have proved that, for whatever reason, this fly is repelled by black-and-white stripes, particularly horizontal ones (hence the horizontal stripes on the zebra's behind). I'd appreciate it if someone with specialist knowledge could elaborate on this and incorporate it into the article. Thanks. Palefire

User:Palefire's mention of the stripes putting off tsetse flies intrigued me, and so I had a quick hunt through Google. I have not tried the more specialist catalogues. But in date order, here's what I found:

• The development of zebra striping patterns: article from DevBio, a site which supplements Developmental Biology by Scott F Gilbert, lists several theories. Waage is the "to confuse tsetses" one.
  • Waage, J. K. 1981. How the zebra got its stripes: biting flies as selective agents in the evolution of zebra coloration. J. Entom. Soc. South Afric. 44: 351-358.
• New Life For A Vanished Zebra?:article about quagga-breeding mentions off-handedly that while entomologist Gabriella Gibson says a tsetse is 53 times more likely to land on a black target than on a stripy one, "zebras are largely immune to tsetses, so why evolve an elaborate fly screen"? No further information about Gibson though.
• Some document repository (sorry :)) cites this promising-sounding article:
  • Ruxton, G.D., 2002. The possible fitness benefits of striped coat coloration for zebra. Mammal Review, 32 (4): 237-244. ..which has an abstract listing four general theories, suggesting that the tsetse tests are inconclusive, and reappraising the camouflage one.

So someone with a university library can hunt these down.

Telsa 16:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Zebra with spots - very interesting picture here - Rooivalk 19:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Some document repository mentioned above would be hosted by the quite respectable organisation called... the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations!

I have always read that it is to break up a herd. With all the stripes it is harder for a predator to spot an individual against a bunch of stripes when they are crowded together.

Crossbreed aka zebra hybrid

removed section on crossbreeds for now, as both removals (quote: 'this is retarted') and the previously existing text (no references) were not ideal. However there are some references to be found on Zebra Hybrids, e.g. BBC and elsewhere. If there is solid text on circumstances and cases, with references, we might consider recreating a Zebra hybrid section.Santaduck 20:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I say it's fine without. There's already an article on Zebroids.

hey

expand?

A lot of famous animals have extensive articles on Wikipedia. Maybe the Zebra article could be expanded?

Taxobox pic

I replaced the picture in the taxobox with one that I felt was clearly better that I took. The resolution was much higher, the picture quality was excellent, and the zebra's face took up more of the picture, thus making better use of our pixel real estate. I stated as much as when I was doing so. The photographer of the original picture objected and reverted (not only the picture change but also the content addition -- sloppy revert), without justifying why they felt that their lower-res, more zoomed out picture was better.

As such, I've brought it to discussion. Which photo is better?

A) B)

I'll also add that my pic uses a wide aperture so as to blur the background and sharpen the foreground, thus preventing the background from drawing your eyes. -- Rei 18:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Apologies about the excessive revert. The main reason I like mine better is that your chops off the zebra's nose, and leaves the shape of its head indistinct. I think mine's better framed (missed the tips of the ears, though; dang!), and has a clearer demarcation between its face and body. Lunkwill 18:02, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Lunkwill's picture is better. Rei's image zooms in too close, cutting off too much of the subject - this flaw is especially in the reduced image in the taxbox, which looks less like a zebra, more like a mess of stripes. So I would support reverting back. Nevertheless, I do accept Rei's point about higher resolution being preferable, and given that the background in Lunkwill's picture doesn't look like a Zebra's natural habitat (correct me if I'm wrong), a wider aperture would have helped draw attention away from that. Although of course that can be easily fixed in Photoshop. Palefire 14:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be aggressive, but given that the vote is 2-1 after about a week, I wanted to switch the image back before I forgot about it. If you still feel strongly about it, I think there are several standard options for peer review that might bring in more outside opinions than just the three we've expressed here. Best wishes, Lunkwill 19:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It's been ages since this discussion, but since I just checked in, I'll add that I clearly respect even a 2:1 vote. And, as someone recently removed your pic for one that clearly wasn't as good as easier of ours, I restored yours, not mine, to the taxobox. Cheers! -- Rei 18:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

ambiguity in text

"During the course of a day the plains zebra can walk around forty kilometres (from its herd, and back again in the evening)."

I assume this means a plains zebra can walk 80km a day? --82.133.79.7 10:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Equus hartmannae & Equus zebra

Mountain Zebra pretty clearly states that the current scholarship on the Mountain Zebra puts E. hartmannae & E. zebra are two seperate species. This is per Groves & Bell, 2004. I don't want to start some kind of reversion scandal over zebras, but it seems pretty clear to me that they should be seperately delineated in the taxobox. --mordicai. 20:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Number of chromosomes?

In the wild horse article it is mentioned that the Przewalski horse has 66 chromosomes whereas the domesticated horse has 64. Does anyone know how many chromosomes the zebra has? I recall to have read that the zebra also has 66 chromosomes. If so it raises some quite interesting questions about the relations within the family Equidae. The question being: Is the 64 chromosomes of the modern horse a recent (within the domestication period) change or had the old wild horses of Europe also 64 chromosomes. If so wouldn't the Przewalski horse be more likely to be a close relative to the zebras, and indeed be considered one, than to the horses?

This could of course be decided by comparison of the genetic code from some different spices of zebras, the domesticated horse and Przewalski's horse. If anyone has seen anything about such a comparison it would be interesting to know.

And yes, I do know that the zebras are quite a genetically diverse group, a fact that really only makes the above questions more interesting, it even raises a new one: must a zebra be striped to be considered one?

Anders Kristoffersson 130.243.153.103 19:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

pronounciation

zeb-ra or zee-bra? someone else add it because i don' t know how to use ipa Eng101 03:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've heard both pronunciations, and I'm pretty sure that either is acceptable (I'm from Eastern Canada and I say ZEE-bra, FYI). I can sort of do IPA (with difficulty), and I'll try to add it. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) (The Game) 12:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

"In popular culture"

I have removed the section on "Zebras in popular culture" yet again. Articles "in popular culture" have been the frequent subject of AFD discussions, and most users believe that they generally do not belong in an article about a serious topic. Can we reach an agreement that the trivia section added previously to this article shall not be reinstated? Shalom ^Hello 17:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

do zebra foals learn to identify their mothers by looking at their stripes?

I have recently heard fomr a game ranger in the Eastern Cape, South Africa that zebra newborns spend days focussed on their mother's stripes so as to be able to identify them. Is there science in this or only a good story? liz in Johannesburg