> Despite over a century of interest, the function of zebra stripes has never been examined systematically. Here we match variation in striping of equid species and subspecies to geographic range overlap of environmental variables in multifactor models controlling for phylogeny to simultaneously test the five major explanations for this infamous colouration. For subspecies, there are significant associations between our proxy for tabanid biting fly annoyance and most striping measures (facial and neck stripe number, flank and rump striping, leg stripe intensity and shadow striping), and between belly stripe number and tsetse fly distribution, several of which are replicated at the species level. Conversely, there is no consistent support for camouflage, predator avoidance, heat management or social interaction hypotheses. Susceptibility to ectoparasite attack is discussed in relation to short coat hair, disease transmission and blood loss.
Well it's hard to know what fitness terrain lay between the present phenotype and that one, so it's necessarily obvious bthat such an adaptation would occur. Nor is it obvious that stripe attraction is more adaptive. Could be hidden costs I'm not cognizant of. In any case, we were speaking of the zevras adaptation, not the mosquito's. If true that mosquitos are not attracted to striped things, it doesn't matter why zebras have stripes. What matters is the cost to mosquitoes presently incurred by missing out on all that zebra. Indeed, one wonders why mosquitos haven't adapted to the zebras stripes already...
