For more than a century, Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So” stories have delighted children (and adults) with imaginary explanations of how animals came to look the way they do.
But while Kipling addressed the leopard’s spots and the camel’s hump, he never explained the zebra’s stripes. A new study helps fill in the void, this time with actual data.
Casting aside a long list of possible explanations, the new research proposes that a zebra’s bold pattern of black and white stripes reflects light in a way that helps the animals evade disease-infested flies.
