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protomyth | 3 years ago

Our findings confirm that zebra stripes repel biting flies under naturalistic conditions and do so at close range

Which has lead to suggestions to breed this into livestock. Which will certainly change the landscape in US.

As I said before: Somehow driving through South Dakota looking out over a vast field of seaweed eating, zebra striped cows was not the future I anticipated as a youth.

discuss

order

ramraj07|3 years ago

It’s possible this only works when only some animals in the neighborhood have stripes, I.e., the insects have other targets available and they’d just choose the less distracting one. In the absence of any other alternative they might end up still biting the striped animals.

libertine|3 years ago

I have a question, due to the lack of diversity of food sources for flies, wouldn't that pressure de evolution of flies that ignore the stripes?

Maybe there would be a decline in population first, then a rise of stripe seeing flies.

zdragnar|3 years ago

Biting flies have all kinds of food sources- I live in an area of the midwest with no animal farms for several miles (lots of trees and water springs though) and the woods are so thick with deer flies that I can't take my dogs with on a walk- their ears will have 6 flies each before we get 50 feet.

Deer, bears, coyote, wolves, raccoons, mice, otters, beaver, rats, muskrats, cougar, bobcats, chipmunks and squirrels, elk and moose, skunks, badgers, porcupines can all be found in nature in the upper midwest, along with various moles, voles, shrew and weasel family members can be found pretty much anywhere outside of a city center.

Since deer fly (and other biting flies) typically need a bit of standing water to breed, they're going to be found pretty much anywhere mammals live. If they decide they don't like striped cows, there's going to be plenty of other options to munch on.

dogma1138|3 years ago

Future children drawings of Cows might be very different.

metadat|3 years ago

The flies might still hang around for a slice of pie.