If you look at a zebra and take away the stripes, you will notice that a zebra is a whole lot like a horse. In fact, zebras are very closely related to horses and donkeys. Of course, the stripes are one of the main differences between zebras and their relatives!
Another difference is the fact that zebras are the only one of these three animals to never have been domesticated (which is when people take an animal out of the wild and make it tame). Zebras have excellent eyesight and excellent hearing, and both of these are very useful, because zebras live in the plains of Africa where they are one of the lion’s main sources of food.
The zebra’s stripes also help to keep it safe, because these stripes help to camouflage the zebra. Some scientists also think that zebras are able to recognize each other by their stripes, because each zebra’s stripes are different. That would be pretty cool!
For a long time, people thought that zebras are white animals with black stripes, but now the thought is the opposite, that zebras are black animals with white stripes. They sure spend a lot of time studying zebra stripes, don’t they! That’s probably because the stripes are what make zebras some of the coolest looking animals in the world.
Online lessons for kids: dinolingo.com
