Stripes in the Dust

Middle of the afternoon in Tarangire, and this one was standing on his own. That is not how zebras normally live. They are herd animals and are almost always in a group, but this one was not in the mood for it.

No telephoto was needed here. Getting a zebra's head this large and this sharp at 150mm means you are standing more or less next to it.

There is a lot of nonsense about those stripes. It is not camouflage, and it is not about cooling down either. The best supported answer is a good deal more prosaic: stripes disrupt the landing of biting flies. Horseflies cannot complete their approach over a striped surface, and those are exactly the flies that carry disease. So what stands here as a pattern in the dust is really a defence system.