The okapi’s striped legs look like a zebra’s, but the rest of its body is dark and velvety. These stripes help break up their outline in dense forest light. Sunlight filtering through leaves creates striped shadows that match their markings. Predators find it harder to isolate the okapi’s shape. Each okapi’s stripe pattern is unique, like a fingerprint. The stripes may also help calves follow their mothers through thick vegetation.
This adaptation shows how camouflage can be localized rather than full-body. It highlights the precision of evolutionary design.
The stripes increase survival odds without sacrificing forest mobility. They are a quiet but powerful defense mechanism.
Newborn okapids already have fully formed stripe patterns at birth.
Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)