Card #012 · Mammals
Plains zebra
Equus quagga
Uncommon NT · Near Threatened
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Perissodactyla · Family Equidae
- Range
- Eastern & Southern Africa
- Size
- 217–246 cm (85–97 in)
- Weight
- 175–322 kg (386–710 lb)
- Lifespan
- ~25 yrs
- Diet
- Grasses
Most Notable
No two plains zebras wear the same coat. The pattern is unique to the individual, and it shifts by geography: northern animals are narrowly barred, southern ones carry brown shadow stripes.
When the herds move, they are not simply following the rain. Zebras appear to rely on memory of where the grazing was best in past seasons, setting out for a distant place and arriving as it greens up, months before the conditions that will feed them are visible from where they started.
Stripe patterns vary with latitude: northern zebras are narrowly and more completely striped, while southern ones carry pale brown shadow stripes between the black bands.
They live in harems of a stallion and several mares, and strengthen those bonds by grooming, nipping and scraping along one another's neck, withers and back with teeth and lips.
The quagga, hunted to extinction in the 19th century, was not a separate species but a plains zebra subspecies that had diverged only 120,000 to 290,000 years ago.
Range: Grassland and savanna of eastern and southern Africa.