31–40 of 54 posts
I thought it was for the same reason humans have stripes: http://mentalfloss.com/article/65092/our-skin-covered-invisi...
https://www.techexplorist.com/body-painting-protects-bloodsu...
Evolution doesn’t answer to a single why question. Maybe the stripes have been useful to the zebra population’s survival, maybe not – but it is quite clear.that there is no singular reason but a bundle of things. E.g. the stripes make zebras harder to distinguish in a herd, which certainly lead to some percentage of survival. Flies too? Cool! But answering it as if there was some intention behind it? That is not how…
Are flies killing (non-striped) zebras? Or would they make them infertile? Attract predators? Flies would be messing with the zebras ability to pass on their genes in some for for this trait to be selected for.
Why didn't buffalo and bison evolve to have stripes? Seems they would benefit from having them.
Why didn't buffalo and bison evolve to have stripes? Seems they would benefit from having them.
If the theory of evolution is correct, then there is no why to any animal trait. There's no "reason" for the traits, it only happens that maybe some traits allowed the species to survive longer and so they are still around today, but that doesn't mean "someone" enforced a certain trait with a certain purpose. So, a more scientifically oriented title should be: What do Stripes do for Zebras? Shoo away flies.
No, that's a common mistake. In fact, there can be causation without a sentient causal entity. Zebras have stripes because their stripes shoo away flies, which helped previous generations of zebras who had stripes thrive and pass their genes forward. Why do zebras have stripes? Because they shoo flies away and evolution ensured that that helpful trait kept passing through descendants until every zebra had it as a dom…
Not necessarily. A trait may also be there simply because it's not actively harmful, or maybe because it's a useless side-effect of another trait that is beneficial.
It may be that zebras have stripes because they are not harmful enough to prevent them from passing their genes forward. (of course, in this particular case the flies hypothesis seems more likely).
I think flies can detect carbon dioxide levels to find their hosts ( https://journeynorth.org/tm/crane/co2_traps.html ) Why is this fact never mentioned in this article, and did they do any analysis on how wearing a coat can affect CO2 levels around a horse's body?
They did attempt using coats of solid colors with no benefit. This at least is partial testing of your hypothesis.
Why didn't buffalo and bison evolve to have stripes? Seems they would benefit from having them.
Why didn't buffalo and bison evolve to have stripes? Seems they would benefit from having them.
In the article it is mentioned that zebras have shorter hair which makes them more vulnerable to the flies. You could ask why didnt they just grow longer hair? Well probably for something else it was important to have short hair.