Recently Stefanie and Chris had a private tour for a repeat group to Southern Africa. They had an amazing tour and wanted to share the following. The most common striped animal to come around on a Sunway Safaris Tour is likely to be a Plains Zebra or formerly known as Burchell’s Zebra. This iconic animal never ceases to fascinate our visitors from overseas. It certainly never ceases to fascinate me and I have seen loads and loads but there is just something truly beautiful and magical about zebras.

Are they black with white stripes or white with black stripes? And why stripes? What purpose do the stripes serve when they are black and white, one of the most obvious colour in the bush? Why can’t they be tamed? So many questions that still don’t have an answer that is 100% proven.

On this tour the group of 10 from Luxembourg got to experience the Namibian Desert at its fullest. Even to the point where they all were tired of the dust and dryness and keen to see some green! However the desert still provided us with lovely animal sightings such as oryx, ostrich and springbok. The Hartmann’s mountain zebra wanted to stay hidden though. This species of zebra is only found in this arid area of western Namibia and Angola.

After leaving Brandberg and the dry area of the Damaraland behind us, we were heading towards Etosha for an afternoon and a full day game drive. Both drives seemed to be dedicated to find as many Plains Zebra as possible! We even joked that we probably came across the entire population of zebras in whole Etosha. Hundreds and hundreds of these stunning animals gathered around the waterholes, posing for wonderful pictures!

And the best part is that in Etosha, the zebras seem so at ease with vehicles that they just stay where they are and go about their natural behaviour. They drink, they rest, they fight and they wander … Being highly water dependant, it is no surprise that they often come together around waterholes in Etosha. And due to its dry land, fighting stallions always present amazing photo opportunities as you can be sure that lots of dust is kicked up and making the images seem even more dramatic.

I personally love to talk about zebras. There are so many things to tell, so many theories to get people thinking … No zebra has the same stripe pattern, making each and every animal unique! The stripes seem to baffle the scientists, as there is still no theory as to why they have them that has been proven to be the correct one. Theories are that a) camouflage; the vertical stripes and the grass together make it hard for a lion (which is colour blind) to make out the zebra and/or in a group, the zebras stripes together make it difficult for a predator to single out an animal. B) Temperature regulation; Capillaries underlying the black stripes which attracts the heat and the white stripes that reflect the heat which then creates small air currents that serve as a cooling system over the zebras body. C) Insect repellent; a recent study said that flies and other insects seem to struggle to land on a zebra due to the stripe pattern affecting their vision. I am sure we haven’t heard all the theories yet and more are still to come! Until then we appreciate their beauty and let nature keep that secret.

The zebra is a black animal with white stripes. That is my theory. Why? Because if you look at the mouth and nose area where you can see skin without fur, it is black. Apparently if you shave a zebra the skin also is black. Yet one can Google and find that there are opposite theories and so this as well shall remain a mystery!

If you want to hear more interesting facts about Zebras then come on tour with us as this group of great people did. Etosha is my favourite place for watching them but any tour can provide with great sightings of these iconic African animals.