The Courier has teamed up with Blair Drummond Safari Park to offer readers the chance to win a family pass for two adults and two children each week - and learn a bit more about their residents at the same time.
Last week, the safari park celebrated the 23rd birthday of its Grant’s zebra Spot.
Spot and his companion Tanu share an outdoor habitat with the park’s giraffes and ostriches - and can often be spotted trying to pinch the giraffes’ food whilst the keepers are in the process of hanging it up.
A safari park spokesperson said: “It is relatively easy to tell the two boys apart, due to Spot’s unusual markings. Spot has two very cool lightning-bolt shaped stripes on his right side.
“Zebras are of course famous for their beautiful striped pattern, but this striping is far from just a pretty design. Their distinctive stripes play several important roles in a zebra’s life.
“In a recent study that took place in Japan, researchers painted black cows with zebra stripes to better test out their effects. Amazingly, they found that the stripes reduced fly bites by a massive 50 per cent.
“The stripes confuse the flies’ vision and motion detection, causing them to bounce off of the animals when they try to land as they fail to decelerate properly.
“There are also theories that the optical illusion caused by the stripes may confuse the eyesight of the zebras’ larger predators, as well as the flies. When zebras are grouped together, it may be that that their combined stripes make it hard for a lion to pick out individual members of the herd. Furthermore, some researchers believe that the stripes help zebras to maintain their body temperature and avoid overheating.
“Many people often ask ‘are zebras white with black, or black with white?’. The answer is that actually all of the hair on a zebra is the same, it’s just that some has pigment and some does not. As the white only represents a lack of pigment, black is considered to be the base colour of a zebra.
“However, if you look closely at our zebras you will see that they are not in fact black, and are instead a very dark brown.”
Blair Drummond Safari Park is open seven days a week, from 10am until 5.30pm. Tickets can be booked online at blairdrummond.com.
For the chance to win, pick up this week's West Lothian Courier.
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