Thomas Denson, Author

08/10/2025

Thank you Knowledge Tree for the opportunity for a little back to school fun! I had such a great time!

07/26/2025

Hey families! Join us Saturday, August 2nd for Story Time and FUN at Knowledge Tree on Summer! 📖🦓🤎🤍🤎🤍

07/09/2025

Good Golly Gee! Only 2 more days! Zack’s Brown Stripes will be available July 11th! 📖🦓

07/08/2025

Good Golly Gee! Only 3 more days! Zack’s Brown Stripes will be available July 11th! 📖🦓

07/04/2025

Only 7 more days! 🦓

07/03/2025

Good Golly Gee! Only 8 more days! Zack’s Brown Stripes will be available July 11th! 📖🦓

06/29/2025

I see another book coming… 🤔😉

Forget black and white stripes. This baby zebra showed up looking like it came from another dimension.

Meet Tira, a zebra foal spotted in Kenya’s Masai Mara with dark chocolate-coloured fur and bright white spots. Not stripes. Spots. Like some kind of zebra-cheetah mashup. And no, it’s not Photoshop. This little oddball is 100 percent real.

The reason behind this wild look? A super rare genetic condition called pseudomelanism. It’s when the typical black-and-white stripe pattern gets scrambled, creating strange designs like blotches, spots or irregular lines. Basically, Tira’s stripes hit shuffle.

Tira was first photographed by local guide Antony Tira (yes, that’s who he’s named after), and the photos quickly went viral. People couldn’t believe their eyes. It’s the first recorded case of pseudomelanism in the Masai Mara, although a few other unusual zebras have popped up in Botswana before.

While Tira’s look is rare and stunning, it does raise some questions. Stripes help zebras with camouflage, cooling and even pest control. So having a completely different pattern might make survival a bit tougher in the wild. Still, so far, Tira seems healthy and is blending in just fine with the herd.

Fun fact: all zebras are technically black with white stripes, not the other way around. But with pseudomelanism, it’s like the black took over and the white just squeezed in where it could.

Experts are keeping an eye on Tira, both for conservation and because, let’s be real, this is the coolest-looking zebra ever. Nature just casually dropped a limited-edition print and we’re all here for it.

Takeaway?
When life gives you stripes, sometimes it throws in a few spots just to keep things interesting.

06/27/2025

Make a new friend this summer! Good Golly Gee, Zack is almost here! Zack’s Brown Stripes is now available for pre-order on the Barnes & Noble website in all formats and the kindle edition on Amazon! Available everywhere July 11th! 🦓📖🎉

05/24/2025

So, what is Zacks Brown Stripes about?