Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack
Zebras have a bold black-and-white striped pattern on their body surface. Many functional hypotheses on the striped pattern of zebras were generated in scientific researches, such as camouflage, confusion of predators, signaling to conspecifics, thermoregulation, and avoidance of biting flies [1]. Among these hypotheses, several studies now indicate that preventing attack by biting flies is the function of zebra stripes. For example, Caro et al. [2] showed that the phylogenetic distribution of body stripes is associated with tabanid fly distributions at the species and subspecies level. Additionally, Egri et al. [3] experimentally showed that tabanids avoid landing on black-and-white surfaces, such as trays, boards, balls, and buckets. Moreover, Caro et al. [4] demonstrated that tabanids flies are far less likely to land on striped cloth coats than on black or white coats when placed on horses. In contrast, the other hypotheses such as camouflage, confusion of predators, social interaction, and heat management have not been supported by researchers [1, 5–9].
Research further shows that biting flies eschew landing on white [10], striped [3, 11], and spotted surfaces [12]. Stripes narrower than a critical width (approximately 5 cm) and spots smaller than a threshold size (diameter approximately 10 cm) effectively prevent biting flies from landing and these surfaces attract fewer biting flies than white surfaces [3, 12].
More at link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0223447
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Originally Posted by Cotton1
