Are Zebras Black or White? The Truth About Zebra Stripes

What color is a zebra’s skin?

If you could shave a zebra, you would see dark gray to black skin under both the black and the white stripes. The dark skin shows on the muzzle, around the eyes and wherever the hair is thin. This is very different from a white horse, whose skin under white hair is often pink.

The color of the hair is made separately, inside each hair follicle. Special pigment cells called melanocytes produce melanin, the dark pigment, and pass it into the growing hair. In a black stripe, these cells are active. In a white stripe, the melanocytes are present but produce little or no melanin, so the hair grows out white.

So the “default” setting in zebra hair is dark, and the white bands are places where pigment production is switched off. That is why most biologists, and books such as Tim Caro’s Zebra Stripes, describe the zebra as dark with white stripes.

Why do people say “white with black stripes”?

The other view has a simple logic. On many zebras the belly and the inner legs are white and unstriped, so the white can look like the background color. Grévy’s zebra and some plains zebras have a mostly white belly, and the extinct quagga had white legs and tail.

Both descriptions are a matter of perspective, but the skin color and the way pigment is made favor “black with white stripes.” The white areas are the ones where something was turned off, not where something was added.

How do zebra stripes form?

Stripes are laid out long before birth. A widely cited model by the biologist Jonathan Bard, published in 1977, proposed that the pattern is set when the embryo is only a few weeks old, as evenly spaced bands of chemical signals across the skin. Because the body then grows unevenly, the bands are stretched into different shapes: wide on the rump, narrow on the face.

The model also explains differences between species. Plains zebras appear to set their pattern earliest, at around three weeks of development, when the embryo is smallest, so their stripes end up broad and few. Grévy’s zebra appears to set its pattern later, at around five weeks, so it ends up with many more, narrower stripes. The visible striped coat develops much later in pregnancy, and each foal’s pattern is unique.

Unusual zebras: spotted, dark and blond

Rare color variants show how the pigment system works:

• Spotted zebras. In 2019, a plains zebra foal with black fur covered in white dots was photographed in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Its pigment cells were present but did not produce clean stripes, a condition known as pseudomelanism. A few similar zebras have been seen in Botswana and elsewhere.
• Extra-dark zebras. Some zebras have black stripes so broad that they merge on the back and sides, leaving only thin white lines; such “melanistic” zebras have been photographed in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Researchers have linked such striping abnormalities to inbreeding in small, isolated populations.
• Blond zebras. Zebras with pale gold or cream stripes have been reported around Mount Kenya and in Tanzania’s Serengeti. Their pigment cells make very little melanin, a condition related to albinism, though the animals are not fully white.

These animals are rarely seen. Abnormal stripes may make them easier for biting flies to land on, and spotted foals are thought to have lower survival, though there is little data on how long they live.

Why do some zebras look brown?

Plains zebras in the southern part of their range often have pale brown “shadow stripes” between the black ones, especially on the hindquarters. Foals are brown and white at birth, and the brown darkens with age. Stripes can also look brownish when the hair is old, sun-bleached or dusty.

The quagga, an extinct southern form of the plains zebra, took this further. It was brown on the back with stripes only on the head, neck and front of the body, showing how much the pattern can vary within one species.

Black, white and why it matters

Knowing how stripes are made helps scientists study what they are for. Because each band is a sharp switch between dark and light hair, the coat has very high contrast, and that contrast seems to be what makes it hard for biting flies to land. Why do zebras have stripes? looks at the evidence in detail, and the plains zebra profile covers the most common species. Stripes also turn up in unexpected relatives: Is an okapi a zebra? explains a striped animal that belongs to the giraffe family.