Zebra stripes have always seemed stunning and wonderful and majestic. Now, Alan Turing's work done on patterns of diffusion in 1952 is explaining the evolution of a zebra's stripes.
Apparently, when chemicals diffuse across an array of cells and interact with each other, the differences in chemical concentrations lead to a further differentiation in the spreading of the chemicals.
If there are two kinds of chemicals, let us say, and activator and an inhibitor, mixing across an array of cells, there is another level of complexity added, and a pattern of diffusion gets created. Using differential equations for this reaction-diffusion process, Turing predicted six kinds of patterns that would be formed. And one of them is zebra stripes! The results for the patterns predicted have got validated in a lab setting, and been published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences recently.
The magnificent stripes have another benefit for zebras. Apparently, they deter parasitic flies. Both tsetse flies and horse flies, which are capable of draining a significant amount of blood, and are vectors for several fatal diseases, seem to have an aversion for stripes, and prefer to alight on all-black or all-white surfaces.
( http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/turings-thesis-on-morphogenesis-validated/article5863644.ece
http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/apr/02/why-do-zebras-have-stripes-scientists-have-the-answer )
Apparently, when chemicals diffuse across an array of cells and interact with each other, the differences in chemical concentrations lead to a further differentiation in the spreading of the chemicals.
If there are two kinds of chemicals, let us say, and activator and an inhibitor, mixing across an array of cells, there is another level of complexity added, and a pattern of diffusion gets created. Using differential equations for this reaction-diffusion process, Turing predicted six kinds of patterns that would be formed. And one of them is zebra stripes! The results for the patterns predicted have got validated in a lab setting, and been published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences recently.
The magnificent stripes have another benefit for zebras. Apparently, they deter parasitic flies. Both tsetse flies and horse flies, which are capable of draining a significant amount of blood, and are vectors for several fatal diseases, seem to have an aversion for stripes, and prefer to alight on all-black or all-white surfaces.
( http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/turings-thesis-on-morphogenesis-validated/article5863644.ece
http://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/apr/02/why-do-zebras-have-stripes-scientists-have-the-answer )
