Rare Zebra Foal With Polka Dots Spotted In Kenya

A rare newborn zebra foal with polka-dots instead of stripes has been photographed in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya

by GrrlScientist for Forbes | @GrrlScientist

NOTE: This piece was a Forbes Editor’s pick.

White polka-dotted black zebra foal spotted in Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. This portrait is in black-and-white.
(Credit: Frank Liu / Frank Liu Photography, with kind permission.)

A newborn zebra foal with bizarre polka-dot markings has recently been photographed in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. This is the first time that this unusual pattern has ever been seen amongst zebras in the Maasai Mara.

This rare black zebra foal was first spotted and photographed early one fine September morning near the Mara River by Antony Tira, a respected Maasai tour guide and photographer at the Matira Bush Camp in the Reserve.

“At first, I thought it was a zebra that had been captured and painted or marked for purposes of [researching] migration,” Mr. Tira told the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper. “I was confused when I first saw it.”

After carefully studying the foal, Mr. Tira realized he was looking at a newborn zebra with a pigment disorder.

He photographed the peculiarly marked zebra foal and posted the images to the Matira Bush Camp’s Facebook page. According to the Daily Nation, the photographs generated a lot of attention and unleashed a human “stampede” in the…