Zebra

 
Setswana Name:  Pitse ya naga
 
Scientific Name: 

Equus burchellii
 
 

Three species of zebra still occur in Africa, two of which are found in East Africa. The most numerous and widespread species in the east is Burchell's, also known as the common or plains zebra. The other is the Grevy’s zebra, named for Jules Grevy, a president of France in the 1880s who received one from Abyssinia as a gift, and now found mostly in northern Kenya. (The third species, equus zebra, is the mountain zebra, found in southern and southwestern Africa.)
 
The Burchell's Zebra is built like a stocky pony. Its coat pattern can vary greatly in number and width of stripes. The stripes are a form of disruptive coloration which breaks up the outline of the body. At dawn or in the evening, when their predators are most active, zebras look indistinct and may confuse predators by distorting distance. Their shiny coats dissipate over 70% of incoming heat.

At first glance zebras in a herd might all look alike, but their stripe patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints are in man. Scientists can identify individual zebras by comparing patterns, stripe widths, color and scars.

 
The Burchell's zebra’s social system is based on a harem of females led by a stallion. Stallions establish their harems by abducting fillies who have come into their first estrus. These fillies advertise their condition with a peculiar stance: straddled legs with raised tail and lowered head. All the stallions in the area will fight for a filly in this condition, as she will permanently stay with whichever stallion succeeds in mating with her. The newest female in a harem assumes lowest social status, and is often received with hostility by the other females. Once a female has bonded to a stallion, she will no longer advertise herself when in estrus.

 
Burchell's zebra are both diurnal and nocturnal, but are usually more active during the day. Zebras will graze alone for up to several hours at night, but move very little during that time. Some herds may travel as far as 17 km before choosing a new spot for the night.
 
 
Zebras are important prey for lions and hyenas, and to a lesser extent for hunting dogs, leopards and cheetahs. When a family group is attacked, the members form a semicircle, face the predator and watch it, ready to bite or strike should the attack continue. If one of the family is injured the rest will often encircle it to protect it from further attack.
 
Reproduction
Female Burchell's zebras usually give birth to a single foal (mass of 30 -35kg), which can walk within minutes of being born and run within about an hour. When a foal is born the mother keeps all other zebras (even the members of her family) away from it for 2 or 3 days, until it learns to recognize her by sight, voice and smell.
Within a week, zebra foals are socializing and grazing along side the other members of the herd. While all foals have a close association with their mothers, the male foals are also close to their fathers. They leave their group on their own accord between the ages of one and four years to join an all-male bachelor group until they are strong enough to head a family. Foals are usually born in the summer after a gestation period 375 days.

Breeding is generally year-round for most plains or Burchell's zebra. However, the mating/birth peak is during the early rainy season. Foals mature by the age of 3 or 3.5 years and then reproduce every 2 years thereafter.
 
Habitat
Zebra is widely distributed throughout the northern parts of Botswana, in the west, south to the Aha Hills; throughout the southern part of the Okavango Delta and south to the Kwebe Hills; northern parts of Makgadikgadi and east to Zimbabwean border. Burchell's Zebras inhabit savannas, from treeless grasslands to open woodlands
 
Food
The zebra, though water dependent, is a very adaptable grazer, able to eat both short young shoots and long flowering grasses. It is often a pioneer in the grassland community—the first to enter tall or wet pastures. Wildebeests and gazelle follow once the zebras have trampled and clipped the vegetation shorter.

Botswana zebra migration
Less well known than the East African Great Migration, Botswana is home to Africa’s second largest animal migration, with thousands of zebra moving through the area. Determined entirely by the rains, this annual migration of over a thousand animals between Linyanti (winter) through Savuti to Mababe (summer) where they normally foal and from Nxai Pan (summer) to Makgadikgadi (winter). The sight of thousands of migrating zebra on the flat grasslands of Savuti or the Makgadikgadi is a spectacular sight.