What Do Zebras Eat? Grazing Habits on the Savanna

Grass: the main zebra food

All three zebra species are grazers, but the plains zebra is the most dependent on grass. Studies in East and southern Africa list favorite species such as red oat grass (Themeda triandra) and Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), along with lovegrasses and buffel grass.

Zebras are not very picky. They will eat both fresh, green shoots after the rains and the tall, dry, fibrous stems that many other grazers avoid. When grass runs short in the dry season, they browse on the leaves and twigs of shrubs, nibble herbs, and use their hooves to dig up underground stems and bulbs. Mountain zebras and Grévy’s zebras, which live in drier, rockier country, browse more often than plains zebras.

How zebras eat

A zebra’s mouth is a precise grass-cutting tool. Its upper lip is strong and flexible, and it sweeps grass between the sharp upper and lower front teeth (incisors), which slice it off. Unlike cattle and antelope, which have no upper front teeth, zebras have incisors on both jaws.

The cheek teeth are broad, ridged and very hard-wearing, and they grind the grass into pulp. Grass contains tiny particles of silica, which slowly wear teeth down, so zebra cheek teeth are tall and keep erupting through much of the animal’s life.

Why zebras eat so much: hindgut digestion

Cattle, buffalo, wildebeest and antelope are ruminants. They have a four-chambered stomach and chew the cud, a slow but thorough system that extracts a lot of nutrition from every mouthful.

Zebras, like horses and donkeys, are hindgut fermenters. Their stomach is simple, and most digestion happens later in a large chamber called the cecum and in the colon, where microbes break down tough plant fiber. This system gets less out of each mouthful, but food moves through roughly twice as fast. So a zebra can survive on poor, stemmy grass, provided it eats a lot of it.

The result is that zebras spend about 60–80% of their time feeding, depending on the season. They graze through the day, with breaks to rest, drink and groom, and they also feed at night, especially when it is safer from heat or easier to find good grass.

Zebras as pioneer grazers

Zebras play a special role on the savanna. Because they can cope with tall, coarse grass, they often move into an area first and crop the tough upper layer. This opens up the shorter, more nutritious grass underneath for the blue wildebeest, which follows, and then for Thomson’s gazelles, which pick at the leftovers.

This sequence, called a grazing succession, helps explain why the Serengeti can feed so many grazers at once. Each species eats a different layer of the same grassland. Zebras and wildebeest often travel together during the Great Migration, following rain and fresh grass in a long loop through Tanzania and Kenya.

How much water do zebras need?

Plains zebras are among the most water-dependent large grazers in Africa. They usually drink at least once a day and rarely wander more than 10–12 km (6–7.5 mi) from a river, lake or waterhole. Dry grass contains little moisture, so drinking becomes even more important in the dry season.

Waterholes are dangerous places, since lions and crocodiles wait there. Zebras often approach cautiously in groups, drink quickly and move away. Grévy’s zebras of northern Kenya and Ethiopia are much better at coping with drought; they can go several days without water, and nursing mothers need to drink more often than other adults.

Seasonal changes in the zebra diet

Many plains zebra populations move with the seasons to find the best grass. Some travel only a few dozen kilometers, while others, such as the herds of northern Botswana, make round trips of about 500 km (310 mi) between dry-season water and wet-season grazing.

Do zebras eat anything else?

Zebras are true herbivores and do not hunt or eat meat. Like many grazers, they sometimes lick salty soil to get minerals such as sodium that grass lacks. Foals drink their mother’s milk at first and start nibbling grass in their first week, but they are not fully weaned until about 7–11 months old.

Grazing also shapes how zebras live. Because they need so many hours of feeding and daily water, they cannot hide in thick cover, so they rely on group living, sharp senses and speed to stay safe from predators. How fast can a zebra run? explains how they escape when lions attack.