Zebra's stripes have always been one of its most iconic features, but in recent cases, the African equines have been spotted with unusual color patterns that reveal the troubling future the species may face soon.
Unusual Zebra Patterns and Colors
According to National Geographic, there have been many sightings of zebras with unusual patterns and colors. Zebras with golden coats, black splotches, and light-colored stripes have been photographed in the past.
As recent as 2019, scientists discovered a polka-dotted zebra youngling with white spots in its dark-brown body in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve.
These unusual patterns are often caused by a mutation that alters an animal's melanin production, which is relatively rare in mammals. This is whybiologists like Brenda Larison from UCLA found the data concerning. An estimated 5% of plains zebra residing near Uganda's Lake Mburo had abnormal stripes.
Despite being the least threatened out of the three zebra species, the plains zebras population has dropped by 25% since 2002, with only roughly 500,000 ranging from South Africa to Ethiopia.
Experts believe that habitat fragmentation caused by human development, fences, and roads have forced the zebra populations, such as the one in Lake Mburu, into small pockets of land, preventing some from migrating between hers.
The nearly threatened herbivorous mammal naturally migrates between herds to infuse new genes into the population-a vital process in the long-term species survival. Lack thereof could lead to inbreeding, genetic defects, disease, and ultimately infertility.
"The observation led me to wonder: Is part of the reasoning that I'm seeing so many is because this population is inbred," says Larison, who is currently studying the evolution of zebra stripes at UCLA.
Researchers ran a genetic analysis on a total of 140 individual plains zebras, including seven with unusual coat patterns from various locations in Africa, including South Africa's Kruger National Park and Namibia's Etosha National Park.
The study published in Molecular Ecology found that a smaller isolated population of zebras has lower genetic diversity, which did not come as a surprise for biologists. However, it also revealed that smaller groups had a higher chance of producing abnormally striped zebras, which suggests that poor genetic diversity is directly proportional to genetic mutations.
Researchers believe that despite studying only 7 odd-patterned animals, the findings are a definite visual warning of the plains zebra's future. Larison says, "genetic issues show up before really problematic things start to happen."
Experts theorize that odd stripes could make the zebras more susceptible to predatory activity, with most recorded polka-dotted zebras are younglings. Within the herd, however, zebras don't seem to mind the stripped and spotted ones.
The main concern says Larison is the zebra's genetic health. Analysis using advanced genetic sequencing shows that some populations are possibly diverging more compared to normal circumstances due to human population pressure.
Plainly said, zebras are becoming genetically closer within the herd but are growing more distant, mirroring physical separation. Experts speculate that these occurrences may lead to a new subspecies of plains zebras.
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