According to a new study, black stripes of Zebra may help them to stay cool in midday African heat. Researchers have work hard to describe the purpose of unique black-and-white coat of zebra.

Earlier, it has been suggested that the stripes of zebra may help them camouflage themselves and escape from lions and other predators, or to stay away from nasty bites from disease-carrying flies.

Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studied that how stripe styles of plains zebras at 16 different locations from south to central Africa get influenced by 29 different environmental variables. It was found by the researchers that the definition of stripes along a zebra's back most closely linked with temperature and precipitation in a zebra's environment. It did not link with the presence of lions or tsetse flies in the region.

According to the findings, torso stripes might do more to help zebras control their body temperature than to stay away from predators and tsetse flies.

Co-author Ren Larison, a researcher at UCLA said that other animals also need to regulate body temperature. But zebras might particularly benefit from an extra cooling system because they digest food less efficiently as compared with other grazers in Africa. Zebras need to spend long time out in the heat of the midday sun, consuming more food.

It was found that the plains zebras with the most-defined torso stripes usually survived the Northern, equatorial region of their range and those have less-defined torso stripes were common in the Southern, cooler regions of the range.

Researchers also want to test the thermoregulation hypothesis. They will do this either by examining the behavior of air currents over zebra pelts or by implanting temperature sensors with wild zebras.