Zebra

The zebra is a wild member of the horse family that lives in Africa. Zebras are famous for their black and white stripes, which cover their whole body from nose to tail. They look a lot like horses but are shorter and stockier, with a stiff mane that stands straight up. An adult zebra weighs between 500 and 900 pounds, about the same as a small horse.

There are three kinds of zebra alive today. The plains zebra is the most common and lives in grasslands across eastern and southern Africa. The mountain zebra lives on rocky slopes in the south. The Grévy's zebra is the biggest and rarest, and lives in dry areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. Grévy's zebras are endangered, with fewer than 3,000 left in the wild.

Zebras are plant eaters. They spend most of the day chewing grass, and they can go a few days without water if they have to. They live in family groups, usually one male with several females and their young. Plains zebras often gather into huge herds of thousands during the yearly migration across the Serengeti, traveling hundreds of miles in search of fresh grass and water.

Why do zebras have stripes? Scientists have argued about this for more than a hundred years. One old idea was that the stripes help zebras hide in tall grass. Another was that they confuse predators, like lions, that chase the herd. The newest research points to a different answer: flies. Studies show that biting flies have a very hard time landing on striped surfaces. In Africa, some of these flies carry deadly diseases, so stripes may protect zebras from getting sick. The debate is not fully settled, but the fly idea is now the leading one.

Zebras have strong kicks and sharp teeth, and they are not shy about using them. A single kick from a zebra can break a lion's jaw. Unlike horses, zebras have never really been tamed. People have tried for hundreds of years, but zebras are nervous, stubborn, and quick to bite. A few have been trained to pull small carts, but no one has built a working zebra farm.

Lions, hyenas, and crocodiles hunt zebras, but the biggest danger today is people. Hunting and the loss of grasslands to farms and towns have pushed two of the three zebra species into trouble. Parks and reserves across Africa now protect most of the remaining herds.