Page 35 - Silver Lakes April 2021

NATURE

the stripes break up the animal’s image
and that predators viewing a herd cannot
sort out an individual to attack. Can that
be true? If so, how is it that zebras rate so
highly on the lion’s menu?

A more popular theory is that pests such
as biting insects are put off by the stripes.
Another is that it helps them control their
temperature.
What also puzzles people is why, even in
times of drought when grazing is difficult
to find, zebras remain so fat. In fact, they
all look positively pregnant – including the
males. This is because their intestines are
inflated by gas - gas created by bacteria
that thrive on the half-digested grass
that passes along the zebra’s gut. Without
these bacteria, zebras would starve to
death, for the microbes break down the
A foal knows its mother by her stripes
fodder making the nutrients available
to be digested. It’s what is known as a
symbiotic relationship.
The zebra’s jaws and dental battery are
formidable. I recall a zebra stuck in a deep
mudhole. Its would-be rescuers were
trying to throw a loop around its neck but
the zebra foiled the plan by catching the
rope in its teeth and refusing to let go. The
rescuers then found they were able to drag
the animal clear merely by its teeth.

Zebras, in defending their young, have
been known to fight off lions using their
teeth and hooves and are known to have
bitten a hyena to death.

I remember Hilda Stevenson-Hamilton,
widow of Colonel Stevenson-Hamilton,
the first warden of Kruger Park. Her
forearm was just skin on bone – no flesh at
Each zebra’s patterning is unique all. She had been bitten by her pet zebra. It
was not an affectionate bite!

Richard Goss who, in 1990, updated and
expanded C Astley-Maberly’s Mammals
of Southern Africa mentioned the finding
of a poacher’s body “badly mutilated and
disabled”. From the spoor around the body
it appeared he had killed a foal and was set
upon by several zebras and trampled and
bitten to death.
One of the most pleasant calls in the bush
is the gentle ‘bark’ of the Burchell’s zebra.
Goss describes it as “Kwa-ha! Kwa-ha! Kwa
–ha-ha-ha!”

That’s how the name quagga arose. It was
the word the Hottentots used for the now-
extinct quagga that had stripes only on its
forequarters. Kwagga was the favoured
Afrikaans word for zebra for many years.
Panic Dam (looking through a window) illustrates how green everything is this year

INTRA MUROS APRIL 2021 33