Is it fair to say the jury is still out

I agree CM. I think there is an awful lot of evidence towards them being "white" with black stripes and very little the other direction IMO. Maybe I missed them, but I sure don't remember seeing any Quaggas with black rumps as they say. Most of them looked light cream to me.

I also don't think the argument of "a white animal would not survive well in the wild" is a bit moot. They are no longer white. Natural mutations such as these remain in the population because they are beneficial, thus all white animals were not beneficial, but black and white striped animals were. However that argument would somewhat refute my dun theory as I believe they are only "white" underneath the black stripes because they are super diluted duns.

I really do think the crosses say alot too.

I still think its more color "organizing" than anything and that they are simply black striped and the white area had the pigment sucked out of them

I forgot is someone going to give Hoofpick some Zebra hair so she can look at it against her Dun hair samples ?????????????

That would be interesting...anyone????
I am still of the opinion that they are white with black stripes, myself.

No one has made an analogy with tabby cats yet- tabby is agouti and stripes- there are areas, in a pattern, where the agouti process doesn't work, also the pattern is still evident on non agoutis. Silver tabby cats have black stripes with reduced yellow pigment in the agouti areas. Therefore zebras are silver tabby :D
Seriously, I mean they are agouti with stripes of non-agouti where the pigment cells don't respond the agoutifying effect (brain is tired but you know what I mean). And the base colour has mostly lost its yellow pigment through evolution. So white with black stripes.

I love discussing tabby agouti genetics on the cat forum. [i]Silver Tabby Zebras[/i].
Sounds good to me... I'm in! =^..^=

Sorry guys, I can't send any zebra hairs now. I cut ties with the owner of the zebra due to her being a B****.

My personal theory is that zebras are extreme dun. I think the reason the Fjord cross zorse might be so minimal is because of the probability of pangere in the Fjord (I think that's why they are so minimally dun), somebody else mentioned a zonkey that was minimal and I think that further adds to my personal theory.

I also think they are agouti dun. So bay dun. With the coloration having lightened over time (like the Silver tabby argument/theory).

I will say though, the zebra I am familiar with is very BRIGHT white (when he's not dirty lol).

:cry:

Hoofpick can you get in touch with Spots and Stripes stud and ask them for some hairs explain the situation maybe ????? - just a thought ! :D

I would have thought all animals are normally agouti in the wild, whatever they actually look like. Horse genetics confuse me sometimes as you all take the basic colour as self black and work from there where colour genetics in other species takes the wild colour (black agouti in all the species I've studied) and sees any other colour as being a mutation of that. To me black is a mutation in the agouti process that causes the solid black colour, I'd be mightily surprised if zebras were anything but AA agouti. A black (aa) zebra would surely be solid black?

If zebras really were EE AA all zedonks and zorses would be bays, which [i]most[/i] of them are, at least ones I've seen. There are some chestnut zorses and grey dun zedonks. So couldn't that mean some are Ee Aa... maybe those diluted zebras were really ee or something and the extreme dun dilutes them so much they are peach with the peachy eyes.