How Did Zebras Get Their Stripes?

In our world where so much is manufactured - or created by film magic - it's hard to remember how astonishing nature has been in the creation of so many of her creatures. The exquisite stripes on zebras, for example, must have seemed miraculous to the first people who saw them.

Now some European scientists have presented a mundane explanation for this miracle of nature, saying that zebras' stripes exist to stave off blood-sucking horseflies. This explanation, as it turns out, is one of many possibilities.