Zebras, putting the bite on!

Animal behaviour.

Taken in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.   Often when viewing and photographing wildlife,  I found it was very easy to end up with a lot of “portrait” type shots of animals, which in many cases made for nice images, but sometimes just lacked a spark that might take the image to another level.

With many of the herbivores,  they spent so much time grazing and standing around that I found myself willing them to “do something”.    It was worth having the camera constantly ready to capture any interesting behaviour when it did occur.    In this instance, two zebras stopped grazing momentarily to engage in this “biting” behaviour.   The behaviour didn’t last long and neither animal harmed the other.  The meaning of this behaviour isn’t clear to me,  is it a means of establishing or reinforcing status within the group?   I can’t be sure now what gender these individuals were nor indeed if that was significant.   If anyone’s got any clues on this,  let me know,  meanwhile I’ll have to do some research on the subject!     cheers  KD.

Biting behaviour, zebras, Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.  Canon 5D with 500mm lens at F9.0, shutter speed 1/200 second at ISO 800,  cropped image.

This image is part of the Tanzania gallery.