Posts Tagged ‘zebra’
Africa’s Horse – The Glorious Zebra – How They Survive And Prosper
Belonging to the same family as horses, zebras are famous worldwide for their pajamas look. The African landscape remains unique thanks to these magnificent animals that remain an attraction point for any tourist to Africa. Click through here for additional info on tiger tattoos .
There are three major species of zebras, the mountain zebras, the plains zebras and the Grevy’s each with specific features and behaviors additional to the common traits. Imperial or Grevy zebras share wide areas in the lands of Kenya with their plain zebras kin; they are the most similar to their horse relatives unlike the mountain subspecies that resembles asses most. Though limited to the African continent, zebras are adapted to many diverse habitats from mountains and hills to woodlands, savannas and grasslands. Presently, there are fewer zebras in the wild than a hundred years ago since the development of human civilization has had its impact on the zebra population, not to mention that for quite a while they were abusively hunted for their skins. You will acquire additional worthwhile information on tiger tattoos here.
The striped patters that zebras are famous for, represent an ID mark of each individual as the specimens recognize each other visually. Moreover, the stripes have a very important camouflage function against predators like lions. The stripes create the impression of waving grass particularly when the zebras live in herds, and lions have great difficulty spotting them because of their monochromatic view. Zebras have great eyesight, and scientists believe that they have a visual acuity that makes them able to distinguish colors. Moreover, night vision is one other remarkable skill together with a great sense of hearing. This complex alert system enables the animals to turn their ears in all directions sensing danger in no time, and last but not least, the smell and taste are also superior to that of other mammals.
As for food preferences, zebras don’t get to starve as they are very adaptable grazers, feeding on herbs, twigs, trees bark, shrubs or leaves. Unlike other herbivores that need a high amount of nutrients, zebras can subsist on less nutritional food for quite long periods of time thanks to their very good digestive system that is able to extract nutritive substances from almost anything. You can get oodles of complementary valuable info on lion tattoo designs here.
When it comes to mating habits, there are specificities to each zebras subspecies, as some live in harems consisting of mares guarded by a stallion, whereas others get in groups for a few months every year to mate and then resume a more solitary life. The mating cycle occurs once a year for females and they usually give birth to one foal only.