Study:Zebra stripes May Be For Cooling

One hypothesis for the correlation is that bold black and white stripes cool zebras by creating convection currents in the air around the animals' bodies. That is, air moves faster over sunlight-absorbing black stripes and slower over white stripes to create cooling airflow, National Geographic reported.

Indeed, preliminary observations using a digital thermometer gun showed that grazing zebras maintain a significantly lower surface body temperature (84.6 degrees Fahrenheit) than nearby antelopes that are similar in size but have brown coats (90.5 degrees).

There were many theories suggested by scientists regarding zebra stripes, including the stripes evolved to repel insects, confuse predators, provide camouflage through some form of confusing optical illusion, reduce body temperature, or help with social cohesion.

Scientists from the United States and Germany studied 29 different environmental variables in Plains zebras in 16 different sites ranging from south to central Africa.

“Our finding that the two environmental variables most closely associated with variation in striping were both temperature variables lends support to the hypothesis that striping may be related to thermoregulation”, researchers reported.

The new research could not exactly tell the reason behind the stripes. However, it does indicate that temperature is a robust factor to have a relation with striping.