The surprising reason why zebras have stripes

I am constantly amazed by the brilliance in nature.

(BTW, I don't know if you noticed, but you're looking different than you used to)

Rejected Screenplay Idea #713 "A New Kind of Superhero,"
Lounge Singer Man
A White Australian butterfly researcher with inherited wealth attends an advanced International conference on rare and extinct butterflies. During research to recombine DNA from an extinct species, something goes terribly wrong. The researcher inadvertently subjects himself to DNA recombination with butterfly DNA and DNA from a recently-deceased lounge singer who had once performed on the adapted premises.

The pale-skinned researcher finds himself becoming increasingly withdrawn and with a sudden ravenous appetite for greenery. A gardener catches him eating leaves from a plant and the normally mild-mannered scientist nearly attacks him for cutting him off from his meal. The researcher, recently divorced, surprises himself by renting an expensive penthouse suite lavishly decorated with 1970s disco-era memorabilia. He arranges for huge quantities of salad greens to be dropped through his door slot every day, paid on his credit card.

Every day he gorges out on greenery, adds more sheets to his bed and listens to a music he'd never before shown interest in, such as Frank Sinatra and Soul. As the days go by, gorging on salad greens, dressing himself in shinier and shinier attire, listening to a huge range of Las Vegas music, he becomes sleepy, oh so sleepy. He manages to squeeze himself under the hundreds of pounds of sheets on his bed and goes to sleep...for several months.

With the smell of rotting salad permeating the hallways and getting no response from the suite's inhabitant, building management, though they have a policy of "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" decide the investigate what is going on and call the police. The police break open the premise just as the researcher awakes, decked out in glitzy capes, a shiny hat adorning his very dark complexion, platform shoes, suavely singing into a microphone: It is Lounge Singing BUTTERFLY MAN! "Hey babe, when I ask you to bring me sugar, honey, nectar...I'm not asking you to kiss me--that's what I eat!"

(The reader is silent, stunned by the weirdness of the post, wondering how to get those minutes back that were devoted to reading such odd drivel.)

That's interesting. I always assumed it was to make them harder to see when they are in herds or when running. (Like tiger stripes).

Well, I'm kinda in an RCA dog head tilt over the idea of the stripes warding off bugs. Other animals adapted tough skin or thicker fur, so the stripes have to have more than a single purpose. It doesn't make sense that they wouldn't just grow a thicker fur if bugs are the case. I also wonder if they've checked the endorphins and such to see maybe if these guys don't actually secrete a smell the bugs hate. I've been racking my brain to figure out how stripes would deter a bug. I can't think of anything in nature that would resemble the pattern enough to repel them. There has to be a reason it repels them or they wouldn't have adapted that behavior either.

Oh man. I'm thinking again. I'm no fun anymore.

I spent 2 weeks in the African bush on safari at 3 different camps. It will blow your mind like nothing else.

I have to side with heysal here, The insect somehow is scared off by such a large PATTERN? That doesn't make sense. Various biting insects have been shown to be attracted to HEAT, CO2, SMELL, or just brushed by the hair, and find their way to one of the other things.

Mosquitos, for example are attracted to CO2. Companies have created CO2 traps that attract and kill mosquitos for more than an ACRE!

ZEBRAS could have another component in their CO2 that could throw mosquitos off the scent, or attract them where they can't attack. Their metabolism could be slightly different. They may EVEN have a biological makeup that is incompatible with the disease. SOME think, for example, that the sickle cell anemia that is generally ONLY in blacks evolved to protect against maleria. Another change exists in some from europe that protects against the plague and HIV.

As for the LYNX? WHY only THOSE two spots?

Steve

Has this explanation actually been tested, or is it yet another creatively-concocted bald assertion, which (unfortunately) seem to widespread in evolutionary biology?

Yes, the level of mind-numbingly sophisticated design found throughout the biological world is quite remarkable, and quite uncomfortable for certain people. *wink, wink*

If you really want to have your mind blown, read this: Your Brain Has More Connections Than Every Computer on Earth Combined