ArticleScientific reports2018
Experimental evidence that stripes do not cool zebras.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Perceiving zebra rump stripes "through the eyes of" their predators: A study with human observers.Perception · 2026Article
- Zebra stripes: the questions raised by the answers.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Bio-Inspired Strategy for Radiation-Based Thermal Management and Utilization.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- Preparation and Performance of Biomimetic Zebra-Striped Wood-Based Photothermal Evaporative Materials.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Thermographic Scan of the Thoracolumbar Area in Dogs with Acute Intervertebral Disc Extrusion (IVDE): A Retrospective Study.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Why don't horseflies land on zebras?The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Sunlit zebra stripes may confuse the thermal perception of blood vessels causing the visual unattractiveness of zebras to horseflies.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Numerical Assessment of Zebra-Stripes-Based Strategies in Buildings Energy Performance: A Case Study under Tropical Climate.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A new argument against cooling by convective air eddies formed above sunlit zebra stripes.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Zebra stripes, tabanid biting flies and the aperture effect.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Why do biting horseflies prefer warmer hosts? tabanids can escape easier from warmer targets.PloS one · 2020Article
- Attractiveness of thermally different, uniformly black targets to horseflies:Royal Society open science · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There are as many as 18 theories for the possible functions of the stripes of zebras, one of which is to cool the animal. We performed field experiments and thermographic measurements to investigate whether thermoregulation might work for zebra-striped bodies. A zebra body was modelled by water-filled metal barrels covered with horse, cattle and zebra hides and with various black, white, grey and striped patterns. The barrels were installed in the open air for four months while their core temperature was measured continuously. Using thermography, the temperature distributions of the barrel surfaces were compared to those of living zebras. The sunlit zebra-striped barrels reproduced well the surface temperature characteristics of sunlit zebras. We found that there were no significant core temperature differences between the striped and grey barrels, even on many hot days, independent of the air temperature and wind speed. The average core temperature of the barrels increased as follows: white cattle, grey cattle, real zebra, artificial zebra, grey horse, black cattle. Consequently, we demonstrate that zebra-striped coats do not keep the body cooler than grey coats challenging the hypothesis of a thermoregulatory role of zebra stripes.
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