Fur, and Why are Zebras Black and White?
The wonderful thing about the sea and land is that it’s so unique in every way. There a lot of fish in the sea. I mean seriously, there’s a lot. And every species is different. Sea animals are also way different than land animals. If you take a bison and compare it to a shark, you’ll see an endless amount of differences. The one characteristic that stands out the most is that bison’s have fur while fish don’t.
Fur on a bison is mainly for protection. At cold times, fur can be vital to keep the bison warm. Early humans hunted bison’s and many other furry animals with the purpose of keeping themselves warm. And they were probably jealous too that only bison’s get to have cool fur. Fur is also used for camouflage. Animals with fur can blend into their surroundings. That’s why most fur is brown colored, so that they can be one with the tree.
Bison skin, deer skin and our human skin are very vulnerable. If you shave off all the fur from a deer, the deer will show its real pink skin. And pretend that the deer is dead so it doesn’t try to run away when you shave it. Don’t worry about the fur, it’ll grow back.
[caption id="attachment_229907" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="Baby Deer (Doc: guardianangelreadings.net)"][/caption]
Fur is also used to protect us from something we can’t hide from, and that is the sun. The sun can be deadly and caring at the same time. I mean, look at Mars and Mercury, two dead planets because the sun was just a little harsh on them. Now look at Earth, covered in green vegetation. And that vegetation is green because of photosynthesis, because of the sun.
The sun is also an extreme provider of radiation. Radiation is good of course. It warms up our bodies, but it can get out of hand sometimes. Deer skin is vulnerable to this so it’s a good thing that they have a good layer of fur. Fur can protect us from the bad radiation. Elephants on the other hand, have thick skin so they didn’t need any fur. We sure don’t have heaps of fur on our body, or thick skin, but we do have slick hair.
Human hair color varies from blonde to black, brownish red to brown. Most animal furs are brown, except for the weird looking zebra. Why are zebras full with black and white stripes? Certainly, black and white stripes won’t help you camouflage in a forest full of green. Not to mention that their habitat is the savannah, which is a wide area range of yellow grass with a tree or two occasionally. This is mainly due to the droughts and the lack of rain.
[caption id="attachment_229906" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="Savannah (Doc: www.photo-dictionary.com)"]
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[/caption]Predators such as lions also roam the savannah, hungry as they look for food. So zebras are basically vulnerable. Are they? Well, zebras tend to walk, run, graze and eat in humungous packs. Those packs not only contain zebras, but a bunch of other animals like elephants and giraffes. When a lion stalks its prey, it uses its camouflage fur (which is their yellow skin because they live in the savannah, which is yellow) to hide in the bushes. When it’s ready it attacks.
One zebra is enough to feed a lion family, if the lion so happened to catch it. Zebras and horses have hooves which are super hard. They have hooves so that they can travel for long distance travels on hard terrain. The zebras black and white color also helps it escape the predator. When the zebra runs at full zebra speed, those colors will confuse the lion creating a ‘blur’ effect, thus letting the zebra escape.
[caption id="attachment_229904" align="aligncenter" width="530" caption="Zebra Herd (Doc: eijkhout.net)"]
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[/caption]I’m Amri and this is my article. Thanks for Reading!