There have been many debates on if a zebra is black with white stripes or white with black stripes. Embryological studies have shown that the zebra has a dark background color and their bellies and white stripes are secondary colors. When zebras are born the foals are brown with white stripes and darken to the more common black color as they get older.

Zebras are like all horses in the fact that they are highly social animals. Each of the three species of zebras has different ways of expressing this social structure. The Plains zebras and the Mountain zebras live in groups of several females or mares and one male known as a stallion. This group is called a harem. It is the male’s job to protect the mares and the foals, or baby zebras when danger appears. The mares and stallion will make a circle around the baby foals and it is the stallion’s job to ward off the dangerous predators.

The Grevy’s zebras on the other hand are not like the Plains or the Mountain zebra’s. Grevy’s zebras do not stay together permanently, but only a few months because they do not have a permanent social bond with each other. The adult males live alone and the bachelor males will live together in organized groups while the foals will live with their mothers. When a mother zebra has a baby it will keep it away from all other zebras including the ones in its family for up to 4 days until the baby learns to recognize her through the senses of smell, sight, and sound.

Zebras have excellent eyesight and hearing and have an acute sense of taste and smell. Zebras have a wide field of vision because it has one eye on each side or its head and it has been suggested that zebras can see in color and that they also have night vision but it is not as good as that of their predators. They compensate for this by having great hearing. They have ears like a horse that are big and round and they can turn in all directions. You could say that zebras have the original surround sound.

Zebras are herbivores and very active grazers that eat for many hours each day. A zebra’s diet consists of everything from tender short new shoots all the way to the longest of flowering grasses. They are also known to eat twigs, shrubs, stems, leaves, bark, and herbs. A zebra’s digestive track is developed so that they may eat a diet of lower nutritional quality that other herbivores would require.

When zebras eat, they clips the tops off of what they are eating with their sharp front teeth. They then transfer the food to the back of their mouth where their back teeth then grind and crush the food before it they swallow it. This constant act of chewing causes the teeth of the zebra to wear down very quickly, therefore their teeth will continue to grow for the rest of their lives.