Since white stripes only exist because pigment is denied, black is understood to be the "default" colour of a zebra. Beneath all that fur, zebras have black skin, too. A shaved zebra, without any stripes, could be almost unrecognizable as an all.
If shaved, zebras would retain a striped appearance due to the skin color, though the effect would not be as visually striking without the fur. The unique striped coat remains one of the zebra's most memorable traits, and now you know those stripes aren't just surface. Additionally, if you were to shave a zebra's fur, you would find that the skin beneath is uniformly black.
So, while the black and white stripes are undoubtedly the most visually striking feature of zebras, the scientific consensus is that their base color is black, and the white stripes are a secondary development. In zebras, melanocytes are uniformly distributed throughout their skin, so that a shaved zebra would be completely black. How is he so sure? Barsh explains, "The reason we know that is some of the early work we did on zebras was a collaboration with an owner of a zebra.
We visited her once, and we asked her that exact same question." The collaborator shaved a little hair away and revealed that zebras have completely black skin. Zebras (such as this Burchell's zebra, photographed at Zoo Atlanta) have black skin under their striped coats. If a zebra's fur were to be shaved, its skin would be uniformly black, without any striped pattern.
This dark skin color provides a fundamental indication of the animal's base pigmentation. Further evidence supporting this comes from studying zebra embryos during their development. The opposite opinion comes from the fact that if you were to shave a Zebra, it's skin is black.
That would seem to indicate that the black is the base color of the body and the white (and sometimes a few tan) areas are the stripes. And lastly, the age-old question, "are zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes"? Zebras are black with white stripes. This is because even though they have black and white fur, a zebra's skin is black.
If you shaved a zebra it would be almost completely black!