Scientists at the University of Calgary and UC Davis suggested that if you have always thought of a zebra’s stripes as offering a kind of camouflaging protection against predators, then you must think again. The study findings have been published on Friday, January 22, in the journal PLOS ONE.

The lead author of the study, Amanda Melin, an assistant professor of biological anthropology at the University of Calgary, Canada, said that the most longstanding theory for zebra striping is crypsis, or camouflaging, but so far the question has been always framed from humans point of view.

Melin added, “We, instead, carried out a series of calculations through which we were able to estimate the distances at which lions and spotted hyenas, as well as zebras, can see zebra stripes under daylight, twilight, or during a moonless night”.

Melin carried out the study along with Tim Caro, a UC Davis professor of wildlife biology. In previous studies, Caro and other colleagues found proof, suggesting that the zebra’s stripes give an evolutionary benefit by discouraging biting flies, which are zebras’ natural pests.

In the latest study, Melin, Caro and colleagues Donald Kline and Chihiro Hiramatsu discovered that the stripes can’t be a part of allowing the zebras to blend in with the their environment background or in breaking up the zebra outline, because at the point when predators can see zebras stripes, they perhaps already have heard or smelled their zebra prey.

Caro mentioned that the latest study findings have provided no support for the idea that the zebra’s stripes give a kind of anti-predator camouflaging effect. Caro added that in fact they have rejected the long-standing hypothesis that was questioned by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace.