Zebra stripes only for flies Bashny.Net

Strips - a protection against nasekomyh



Zebra stripes - evolutionary anomaly, which puts scientists in a dead end for hundreds of years. The hypotheses put forward different: they need to mate, to protect against predators, camouflage or thermal protection. None of these hypotheses, however, was not supported by evidence. But researchers from the University of California, seem to have found the cause: a color protects the zebras from the blood-sucking insects - disease vectors.

Earlier, it was observed that horseflies avoid land on the surface of the black and white stripes. To find out once and for all, why zebras stripes, the researchers noted in the map of the geographical distribution of zebras, horses and donkeys, as well as differences in color zebra skin. Then they took into account data such as temperature, terrain, and the number of predators and habitat of mosquitoes.

According to the study, no factors except the flies and horseflies, to banding zebras have no relationship. But zebras live in those parts of the world where most flies. The researchers noted that the short hair of zebras makes them particularly sensitive to insect bites, which may explain why there is a striped skins of other animals.

However, the response has led to a new question: why mosquitoes do not like the striped skin?

via factroom.ru