New equine collection in the making?
- Thread starter kiang
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tizer said:
there has been no debate about the skin colour of zebra. People seem to be confusing the pelage colour with skin colour. They are not interchangeable. If one is going to use the argument that the coat of zebras is black with white stripes because the skin is black, then one could just as easily say that orang-utans are not actually orange at all because their skin is black. As I said, the debate on the colour pattern of zebra would be long (and probably acrimonious) because it is to a large degree a matter of opinion which side you adhere to.Paradoxurus said:
I have not confused hair with skin colour. I was simply backing up this posting:
that is exactly right and is the position I stand at, because neither hair colour is covering the other hair colour, they are just two different hair colours forming a side-by-side pattern.Pertinax said:
(However there is also the argument that as by definition a stripe is a narrow band of colour contrasting with the surrounding colour, that would mean that on a zebra the stripes are therefore formed by the black colouration because the white is the larger area of the coat. It is exactly the same as spots - the spot is the smaller pattern within a larger block of colour)
"White" horses, which are actually called greys (because no horse is referred to as white unless it is albino) have black skin, the skin is only pink under white markings on dark horses.
But greys are born a darker colour and eventually turn white with age.
I would argue that because zebras have the markings from birth and have black skin all over (as was said above), they are not white markings on an otherwise dark animal (because surely they would then have to have pink skin under the white stripes), but are just black and white stripes, and neither is on top of the other.
But greys are born a darker colour and eventually turn white with age.
I would argue that because zebras have the markings from birth and have black skin all over (as was said above), they are not white markings on an otherwise dark animal (because surely they would then have to have pink skin under the white stripes), but are just black and white stripes, and neither is on top of the other.
The latest taxonomy that i have seen places all Plains zebra into E. quagga, and demotes antiquorum (Damara) into burchellii (thus it is no longer 'extinct'). This was Groves & Bell 2004.