David Johnson, age 7, of Mundelein, Illinois, for his question:
Why do tigers have strips ?
You can be sure that Mother Nature designed the tiger's stripy coat. You can also be sure that it is meant to help him to thrive and stay alive. It worked so well that nature gave those stripy coats to all the young tigers who came along later. In fact, it was so successful that nature used somewhat the same idea to help hundreds of other animals. However, each animal wears a different design. After all, he needs to look like hfaself so that he is not mistaken far somebody else.
The word "camouflage" means a disguise, a special disguise that blends in with the scenery. Nature knows all there is to know about camouflage and uses this clever trick to help her animals to protect themselves. Most of them wear outfits that are specially designed to match the scenery around them,. The leopard's spotted coat blends with the speckled shadows among his leafy boughs. A rabbit's outfit matches the earthy browns of the ground. A deer's soft colors blend with the soft shadows under the trees.
In tiger country, the dazzling sunshine streaks the tall golden grasses with dark stripy shadows. The tiger's coat is camouflaged with black and yellow stripes to blend in with the scenery, just when he needs to keep out of sight. A bright eyed deer must stare very hard to spot him creeping up close enough to pounce. Of course, a wide awake deer sees the slight bends in the grass in time. He dashes away and the tiger's paddy paws cannot catch him on the run.
The meat eating tiger feeds on animals that feed on grass. You might want to give more help to the hunted animals and less to the hunters. But nature has no favorite children. The hunted ones are camouflaged to hide them, just long enough to use their wits and escape. The hunters are camouflaged to help them to catch food to stay alive long enough to teach their children to hunt,
All this fits into a magnificent worldwide plan. Nature likes to have a multitude of different animals and rations the food so that all of them get their fair share. If all the deer escaped, there would not be enough greenery to go around. They would starve and so would the hungry tiger. Those camouflaged outfits help to keep the animal populations down to just the right numbers. As a rule, the tiger catches only the sick or careless deer. The wide awake ones escape and have wide awake children so the tiger must keep on trying his very best to catch them.
Most animals wear outfits to help them hide or hunt. A leafy green caterpillar is camouflaged to fool the hungry birds. But some birds wear gaudy plumage for another reason. True, they match the gaudy jungle flowers where they live. But mama birds love pretty colors and choose husbands who wear snappy outfits. In this way, nature makes sure that the parent birds have another generation of children.