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Scientists Dressed Horses Like Zebras To Figure Out Why They Have Stripes (vice.com)
Why do zebras have stripes? From a report: Evolutionary biologists have proposed many possible theories, such as camouflage or vision aids for recognizing individual zebras. But in recent years, pest control has emerged as the leading explanation for zebra stripes. Researchers led by Tim Caro, an evolutionary ecologist at UC Davis, set out to test this idea in the field. The results, published Wednesday in PLOS ONE, reveal that stripes are a powerful deterrent to horse flies, a common nuisance that suck blood and bite flesh. The experiment managed to find the most delightful way to help explain these uniquely patterned coats -- by getting horses to cosplay as zebras.
This too is a product of evolution. Flies are just a worse scourge on the zebras than lions...
Since lions see only in black and white,
Lions see color just fine. Not quite the same as us but definitely not black and white.
Zebra-style horse blankets have been available since a couple of years and precisely for this reason, get less trouble with flies.
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It’s not quite correct but it has been researched. Zebras’ stripes do help them evade lions but not because lions can only see black and white, but because the stripe pattern makes it difficult for lions to identify a single zebra among the herd. The pattern makes them all blend together and confuses the lion enough to let a zebra escape when the lion hesitates or miscalculates.
To test this theory some researchers painted a big stripe (I think it was red) on one zebra in a herd. The lions had no problem killing that one because it stood out and they could track it in isolation even when it was among other Zebras. There may be other benefits to Zebras having stripes, but we do know that it is an adaptation against primary predators.
Dazzle pattern camoflage.