Plains Zebra (Equus quagga): Facts, Stripes and Habitat

What does a plains zebra look like?

A plains zebra is a stocky, short-legged member of the horse family, with an upright mane, a long face and a tail ending in a tuft of hair. Its black-and-white stripes are broader than those of the other two zebra species. On the front of the body the stripes run vertically, and toward the hindquarters they turn horizontal and wrap around the belly.

No two zebras have the same pattern, so researchers can identify individuals from photos, much like fingerprints. The pattern also changes across the range. Northern zebras, such as Grant’s zebra in Kenya and Tanzania, have crisp, narrow stripes down to the hooves. Southern zebras have fewer stripes on the legs and often faint brownish “shadow stripes” between the black ones. Foals are born brown and white, and the brown darkens with age.

Why zebras are striped at all is one of the oldest puzzles in biology; Why do zebras have stripes? explains the leading theories, including the strong evidence that stripes deter biting flies.

How big is a plains zebra?

The plains zebra sits in the middle of the zebra family: larger than the mountain zebra and smaller than Grévy’s zebra, the biggest wild member of the horse family. Stallions have thicker necks than mares. In bursts, a plains zebra can gallop at about 55–65 km/h (34–40 mph), and it relies on sharp turns as much as raw speed to escape. Read more in How fast can a zebra run?

Where do plains zebras live?

Plains zebras range from South Sudan and southern Ethiopia south through Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique to Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The range is now patchy, and the species has disappeared from Burundi and Lesotho. Important populations live in Serengeti National Park, the Maasai Mara, Tsavo, Hwange, Etosha and Kruger.

The species prefers open, treeless grasslands and savanna woodland, both in the tropics and in the cooler south, and it also climbs onto mountain grasslands. It avoids deserts, dense rainforest and permanent swamps. Above all, plains zebras need water: they drink daily and seldom stray more than 10–12 km (6–7.5 mi) from a river or waterhole, which makes them more water-dependent than the other zebras.

Some populations stay in one area all year, while others migrate. Roughly 200,000 zebras take part in the Serengeti-Mara migration alongside the blue wildebeest. In northern Botswana, GPS-collared zebras travel between the Chobe River and the Nxai Pan region in a round trip of about 500 km (310 mi), the longest known land migration of any African mammal.

What do plains zebras eat?

Plains zebras are grazers, and grasses make up most of what they eat. In the dry season they also browse herbs, leaves and twigs and dig up roots and bulbs. Their sharp front teeth clip grass, and the flexible upper lip pushes stems into the mouth.

A zebra is a “pioneer grazer.” It can handle tall, tough, stemmy grass that other grazers avoid, and as it mows down this upper layer it exposes the shorter, more nutritious grass beneath for wildebeest and gazelles. Unlike cattle and antelope, zebras do not chew the cud. They digest food in a large hindgut, which is less efficient but lets food pass through about twice as fast, so zebras spend around 60–80% of the day eating. See What do zebras eat? for the full story.

How do plains zebras live in groups?

The heart of plains zebra society is the harem: one stallion, usually one to six mares and their foals. The adults may stay together for years, even when a new stallion takes over. Mares have a strict pecking order; the top mare leads the group when it moves, and newcomers start at the bottom.

Young males leave their family at one to four years old and join bachelor groups of up to about 15 males, where they play-fight and practice the rituals they will later use for real. Many harems and bachelor groups gather into herds of hundreds or even thousands of animals, especially during migration.

A stallion builds his harem by taking young mares from other families. When a young female comes into season for the first time, nearby males compete for her, and her father tries to fight them off. Fights between stallions include biting at the neck and legs, wrestling and kicking. Zebras keep their bonds strong by grooming each other with their teeth and lips, mainly mothers with foals and mares with their stallion.

Plains zebras have at least six calls. The best known is a barking contact call, often written “kwa-ha,” which gave the extinct quagga its name. A two-syllable alarm call warns of predators, and loud snorts signal danger.

Reproduction and life cycle

Foals can be born at any time of year, but births peak in the rainy season, when grass is plentiful. Pregnancy lasts about a year, 360–396 days, and a mare has a single foal. The newborn can stand within about 15 minutes, walk and run within an hour, and nibble grass within its first week.

For the first days the mother keeps other zebras away so the foal learns her particular stripes, smell and voice. Foals are weaned at about 7–11 months, though some suckle longer. Females usually have their first foal at around three years old, while males rarely win a harem before they are four to six.

Life is hardest in the first year. Up to half of foals in some populations die before their first birthday, mostly to predators, disease and drought.

How long do plains zebras live?

Plains zebras live around 20 years in the wild, although the average is lower because so many foals die young. In zoos, where there are no predators and veterinary care is available, they can reach about 40 years.

Predators and threats

Lions are the plains zebra’s main predator, followed by spotted hyenas. Lions usually ambush a zebra from close range, often a lone old male, while hyenas chase a group and try to separate a foal or mare. Nile crocodiles catch zebras at river crossings, and leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs take mostly foals.

Zebras are far from helpless. When hyenas or wild dogs attack, the harem bunches together with foals in the middle, and the stallion charges, bites and kicks. A well-aimed zebra kick can injure or even kill a predator. Around lions, zebras keep a careful distance of 50–100 m (160–330 ft) and watch.

Conservation status

The IUCN lists the plains zebra as Near Threatened (2016 assessment). It is still widespread, but its total population fell from an estimated 660,000 to roughly 500,000 between the early 2000s and the mid-2010s, and numbers have declined in most range countries.

The main threats are:

• Hunting for meat and skins, both legal and illegal.
• Farming and settlement turning grassland into cropland.
• Competition with livestock for grass and water.
• Fences and roads that block migration routes.
• Civil wars, which wiped out zebras in parts of their range.

Many large populations are safe inside national parks and reserves, and numbers are stable or rising in a few countries, including Namibia and South Africa.

The quagga: a lost plains zebra

The quagga of South Africa’s Karoo was half-striped: brown with stripes only on the head, neck and shoulders, and a plain white belly and legs. It was long treated as a separate species, but in 1984 it became the first extinct animal to have its DNA studied, and later genetic work showed it was a southern form of the plains zebra. That is why the whole species carries the scientific name Equus quagga, the older of its names.

Quaggas were hunted heavily by European settlers for meat and hides. The last wild quagga was probably killed in the late 1870s, and the last one in captivity, a mare at Amsterdam’s Artis zoo, died on August 12, 1883. Since 1987, the Quagga Project in South Africa has been selectively breeding plains zebras with reduced striping to recreate the quagga’s look.

Zebras and people

Zebras appear in southern African rock art that is tens of thousands of years old, and the plains zebra is the national animal of Botswana. People have tried to tame zebras since Roman times, but they never became farm animals the way horses and donkeys did; Why were zebras never domesticated? explores why.

Plains zebras can also breed with horses and donkeys in captivity, producing hybrids known as zorses and zonkeys, which are usually sterile. In the wild, plains zebras sometimes mix with Grévy’s zebras in northern Kenya, and the two species can produce fertile hybrids.