We meant it last time too. And the time before. Look, we still don’t know for sure why but …
Further to How the zebra got its stripes, maybe and How the zebra got its stripes (December 18, 2013), this time really (April 2, 2014), we now learn that it depends on the temperature, so now here.
Zebras in warmer climates sport more stripes, perhaps to keep them cool or healthy.
From National Geographic News:
This “stripe riddle” has puzzled scientists, including Darwin, for over a century. There are five main hypotheses for why zebras have the stripes: to repel insects, to provide camouflage through some optical illusion, to confuse predators, to reduce body temperature, or to help the animals recognize each other. (See “Zebra Stripes Evolved to Repel Bloodsuckers?”)
A new analysis of the plains zebra—the most common species, which ranges from Ethiopia to South Africa—doesn’t tease out one theory as the definitive winner.
But it does show that temperature is the factor most strongly linked to striping: More specifically, the warmer it is, the more stripes on the zebra.
That makes sense. When it is warmer, one can be more reckless. Perhaps the costs of variation are reduced by the abundance of energy.
News from Canada: The warmer it is, the more colourfully people dress too. If you lived where O’Leary for News does, you would see nothing but drab parkas now. Sometimes, you can’t even tell whether whatever inhabits the parka is a man or a woman.
Note: If it travels on two legs, it is a human. So drive carefully, especially on sheet ice. For sure, have an anti-lock braking system.
Also: Re evolutionary psychology, what’s always been a mystery to me is why no one in that apparently dying discipline picked up on actual facts about human beings. Facts that can be determined without resort to nonsensical speculation about what our ancestors “would have” done.
Like this one: Humans like warm places way better than cold ones. Everyone wants to be near the furnace vent.
The local travel tourism industry depends on this fact. All uproars around the alleged “population bomb” have centred on warm places. There has never been an uproar, among mentally normal people, about a population bomb in Finland or Norway or Canada.
I wrote about this stuff in more detail here. (Yes, there would be some obvious things to learn about human nature from our evolution, but they do not especially support Darwinism.)
Also:
Study: Zebra stripes neither hide nor flaunt
Stripes offer no advantage to zebra?
How the zebra got its stripes, this time really
How the zebra got its stripes, maybe
How the zebra did NOT get its stripes?
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