Dare to Dazzle

In a green and brown world filled with leaves and grass, rocks and dust, it must be a pretty tough life trying to hide from predators when you are black and white! Such is the life of a zebra. Some animals have the most remarkable ability to blend into their surroundings, but for the zebra, that is a gift Mother Nature did not share.

Or is that really the case...?

At first glance it seems that the poor zebra was really dealt a poor hand when it comes to defence from predators- no horns, black and white striped in a largely neuturally coloured world- those hardly seem like an advantage. But when you look a bit deeper into things you'll begin to understand that they are not as ill-equipped as it may initially seem. Most predators that will hunt zebra are nocturnal, and as a result have sacrificed colour vision for night vision- an obvious need if that's when you're going to be awake and doing most of your hunting! So this plays right into the hands of the striped stallions and their harems, being black and white in a black and white world doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all now... and then there is another trick up their sleeve. The collective noun for a zebra is a "dazzle". A dazzle of zebra. And it makes perfect sense why. As a predator is noticed by an alert member of the group, they all run to escape, and having 20 zebra running in close proximity to each other really does create a dazzling effect, making it quite difficult for any predator to single out one individual animal to attack.

Maybe a lesson for life? Hang around with like minded people and that will keep you out of harms way? Well, that's for you to decide... But it certainly works for the zebra!