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Wildlife in Serengeti-Park

Chapman’s Zebra | Equus quagga chapmani

There are three types of zebras: Grevy’s zebra, mountain zebra and plains zebra. Chapman’s zebra is a subspecies of the plains zebra and are variably colored. Often, the back half of his torso is rather horizontally striped, the drawing is also seen on the belly and there are often lighter “shadow stripes” available. They live in family groups with a hierarchy. Immediately after the stallion, the lead mare comes with her foals, then the other females come with their young. Although zebras seem to be quite similar to horses, they are different. Zebras do not have strong bones, so they are not suitable for riding. Like horses, zebras are flight animals, reaching up to 50 km / h. Please be attentive, because zebras have very strong teeth, it is seven times stronger than that of a horse!

Serengeti-Park animals: Zebra

At birth, the zebra foals are light brown, with few brownish stripes. The animals get the typical coat drawing after some time. The birth of a foal takes only ten minutes! After that the mare keeps the other family members away from her foal for a while and builds up a firm mother-child bond. Each zebra has a unique drawing; it is like the fingerprint in humans. Why do zebras even have stripes? For many years researchers have been examining various explanations. For example, it was believed that the stripes help the animals to stay cool (the warmer the temperature, the more the stripes), other researchers saw it as a camouflage effect, a greater group cohesion or even a possible meaning for the mate choice. In addition, according to recent findings, the striped pattern helps to protect against tsetse flies, because these flies do not like to land on striped surfaces and they cannot recognize the animal due to their compound eyes! Tsetse flies transmit the dangerous sleeping sickness.