For centuries we have asked questions of evolution. Questions such as why does a Leopard have spots, how did a Camel get it’s hump or perhaps most famous of all: why is a Giraffe’s neck so long? A lot of the time people create “just-so” stories to answer these questions. For example, “it was favourable in terms of evolution by natural selection to be a Giraffe with a longer neck to reach higher branches”. When this theory was tested they found that Giraffes actually spend most their time foraging in low branches. Scientists now believe the long necks are used by males to fight each other for access to females to mate with. (The fact they can also reach higher into fruit bearing trees is an added bonus!) This is called necking. There are plenty of videos on YouTube if you are interested! Most just so stories have now been tested and more scientifically minded and testable hypotheses have been given to describe them. However there is one story that has been puzzling scientists until now: why does a Zebra have its stripes?