Why do some zebras have spots instead of stripes, according to James Harkin?

James Harkin explains that spotted zebras carry a pseudomelanism mutation that darkens the coat until the stripes break into dots. A spotted foal photographed in 2019 went viral and inspired a children's book. Several spotted foals have been recorded, but only one photo shows one reaching adolescence, because the coat makes them easy for lions to catch.

Zebra foals are born with their stripes already formed.
Alan Turing's paper on morphogenesis explains such patterns as two chemicals, an activator and an inhibitor, competing in the skin.
The children's book inspired by the 2019 foal is called Zeke the Polka-Dotted Zebra.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on No Such Thing As A Fish (2026-11-05). Read the whole episode summary →

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