The functional significance of the unique high-contrast black and white stripes of zebra species is a subject of considerable debate. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. įunding: Funding was provided by the Wenner Gren Foundation ( ) to ADM, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to ADM ( ), the National Geographic Society ( ) to TC and University of California Davis to TC. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: Most data is in the paper and Supporting Information files S3 Dataset is hosted at the Harvard Dataverse. Received: SeptemAccepted: DecemPublished: January 22, 2016Ĭopyright: © 2016 Melin et al. PLoS ONE 11(1):Įditor: Daniel Osorio, University of Sussex, UNITED KINGDOM In conclusion, compared to the uniform pelage of other sympatric herbivores it appears highly unlikely that stripes are a form of anti-predator camouflage.Ĭitation: Melin AD, Kline DW, Hiramatsu C, Caro T (2016) Zebra Stripes through the Eyes of Their Predators, Zebras, and Humans. Zebras appear to be less able than humans to resolve stripes although they are better than their chief predators. Stripes confer a minor advantage over solid pelage in masking body shape in woodlands, but the effect is stronger for humans than for predators. In open treeless habitats where zebras spend most time, zebras are as clearly identified by the lion visual system as are similar-sized ungulates, suggesting that stripes cannot confer crypsis by disrupting the zebra’s outline.
On moonless nights, stripes are difficult for all species to resolve beyond ca. 50 m (daylight) and 30 m (twilight) zebra stripes are difficult for the estimated visual systems of large carnivores to resolve, but not humans. We also measured stripe widths and luminance contrast to estimate the maximum distances from which lions, spotted hyaenas, and zebras can resolve stripes. We evaluated this hypothesis by passing digital images of zebras through species-specific spatial and colour filters to simulate their appearance for the visual systems of zebras’ primary predators and zebras themselves. The century-old idea that stripes make zebras cryptic to large carnivores has never been examined systematically.
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