Zebra foal was born not in stripes, but in polka dots

Wildlife photographer Frank Liu was looking for a herd of rhinos in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. He was accompanied by a guide, a local resident, who noticed an unusual zebra foal. He called him Tyra.

"At first I thought it was a zebra that had been caught and painted or tagged to track migration. I was just confused," the photographer recalls.

Like fingerprints, each zebra's stripes are unique. According to Frank, the unusual coloring of the Shooting Gallery is probably the first recorded case in the Maasai Mara. Previously, zebra spotted foals were seen only in Botswana.

According to scientists, foals with unusual coloration have a rare genetic mutation, in which animals exhibit certain anomalies in the pattern of stripes.

Scientists have been arguing for a long time about the purpose of zebra stripes. They believed that they were needed for social adaptation, camouflage and thermoregulation. However, recent studies have shown that black and white stripes serve to protect zebras from flies that sting painfully and carry deadly diseases. Experiments have proven that flies do not like to land on striped surfaces. Therefore, the risk of diseases from insects in zebras is low.

There is a possibility that a shooting gallery with a spotted coat will not be very successful at scaring off flies. The photo shows that zebras accept the difference of a foal, and he will have no problems entering the herd.