Written by Gabriel Feinman-Riordan (College of the Atlantic)

 

There are many quintessential animals one associates with Sub-Saharan Africa. One of these animals is undoubtedly the zebra. Their unique striped pattern makes them easy to identify and easy to love. Like any other species I romantically associated with Africa, I was enthusiastic to get a chance to see them outside of the zoo and in their natural habitats. Luckily my dreams came true almost immediately after we arrived into the bush. After setting up our camp, which conveniently overlooks a spectacular seasonal pan and open grassland, we had a visit from a herd of plains zebra, Equus burchelli. This incredible sighting was treated with an appropriate reaction of enthusiasm and excitement from the entire group. I considered us extremely lucky for being able to see these incredible creatures so quickly into our trip. Of course this was before I realized how common plains zebra are in this area. After several sightings the novelty began to wear off but the wonder and awe that one feels when looking these magnificent creatures in their natural habitat was still as strong as ever.

Before I arrived in Botswana I had a pretty good idea of what zebra looked like; small horse-like creatures with black stripes across their body. What I didn’t know were the ways to identify sex and age, something we needed to learn pretty early on for our research out here. Age is fairly easy to determine, we basically needed to look at the size of the individual to rank it as adult, sub-adult, or juvenile. A fully-grown adult is about 135 cm long and weighs about 220-250 lbs. Sub adults and juveniles are approximately 2/3 and 1/2 that size, respectively. The harder task was identifying the sex. The easiest way to do this is by looking at the rump; males will have a thin black stripe that runs right between their back legs while females have a thicker stripe in the same location. Of course you can always look at their underside for a “bellybutton” or lack thereof. This can be tricky especially when observing these creatures from far away, but as the program progresses I hope to refine and polish my ability to properly sex and age not only zebra, but also all herbivores in the area.

Now even though we’ve only been here for a brief period of time I was able to pick up a few behavioral traits from the plains zebra that I observed. One of the most obvious traits is the fact that plains zebra are rarely found on their own. I have commonly observed them in groups that have 7 or more individuals (the largest herd I’ve seen so far was around 20). After I was able to determine the sex I was able to look at some of the dynamics between members of a herd. Most of the herds I saw were comprised of female zebras and one male. This type of herd is called a harem, which is a group of females that belong to a particular male. This male will defend and breed with his females for as long as he can fend off rival males. Each time we drove by a harem the zebra would run away from the vehicle and the male would situate himself in-between the females and us thus showing his dominance and ability to protect his females.

I have also witnessed herds comprised of just males, which is referred to as a bachelor herd. These males will usually be sub-adults or adults that are not yet strong enough to lead their own harem. They will travel together, eating and growing in both size and strength until they are ready to lead a harem of their own. I have also seen herds mixed in with other herbivores like wildebeest, giraffe, and impala. This tolerance of different species gives zebra more eyes to look for predators. These brief observations only scratch the surface of their complex social and ecological interactions, but I am thrilled to have the opportunity to learn about the creature’s behavior, natural history, ecology first hand, in their natural environment.