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Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack
- axegon 7y agoCamouflage for cows?
- svennek 7y agoCowmouhflage?
- lqet 7y agoCow-moo-flage!
- fiedzia 7y agoI can't wait for "april fools" announcement after thousands of farmers will paint their cows.
- spiderfarmer 7y agoThis knowledge has already resulted in products like this horse blanket: https://www.boeren.nu/b_picture/6926/ https://www.boeren.nu/b_picture/6926/
- L_226 7y agoDo you think that the blanket itself might have some kind of influence on preventing biting insects? /sarcasm
- spiderfarmer 7y agoWell, you can't comfortably cover their legs with a blanket so if flies are more attracted to regular blankets they still get bit more.
- arkitaip 7y agoI wonder if a poncho would with the same pattern would have the same effect...? brb registering ponchos4cows.com
- Gys 7y agoIf covering the cow helps, the pattern on the cover will not make much difference? I assume covering itself is problematic and therefore (too) expensive.
- OJFord 7y agoOr, less bizarrely, presumably it also works if painted like a Friesian?
- Angostura 7y agoThe problem I have with the paper is regarding the nature of the controls. They painted black and while stripes on the cows. But they don't say what the controls were that I can see. Unpainted cows? Or cows painted a single colour. I'd want to see all white and all black painted animals - perhaps the makeup of the paint put off the flies?
- iicc 7y agohttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223447 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... >Six Japanese Black cows were assigned to treatments using a 3 × 3 Latin-square design. The treatments were black-and-white painted stripes, black painted stripes, and no stripes (all-black body surface). So apparently flies don't like white paint.
- throwaway66920 7y agoSeems like they’re missing a critical all white painted cow group
- Angostura 7y agoThank you. I missed that part. But yes, odd about the missing white paint :)
- reportgunner 7y agoAlso is being painted healthy for the cows ?
- pvaldes 7y agoMost probably not; Cows would eventually lick and ingest the painting. There are several types of white pigments, some are poisonous and permanent using several metallic salts, other non durable, calcium and chalk based, and would be washed with the first rain. The idea of a blanket is better, but the problem is that the blanket would act as a tick sanctuary then. Sometimes, it seems that everybody is trying to solve the wrong problems, in any case.
- Ensorceled 7y agoSo covering the cows half in white paint, halved the number of bites? Seems like a large number of flaws in this study: 1. This wasn't 100% so maybe flies avoided the painted cows and just went to bite the non painted cows in the study. Would this work if the whole herd was painted? I know from personal experience that the best mosquito repellant is to bring a "city slicker" as bait but you need DEET if one isn't available. 2. Maybe it's the paint and if you cover the entire cow the flies stay away entirely? 3. How long did this experiment run? Once they horseflies get hungry or ending their season, they get more aggressive (they are getting aggressive right now in Ontario)
- clnhlzmn 7y agoThey did paint some of the cows with black paint to rule out the effect coming only from the paint itself.
- oh_sigh 7y agoSeems like a large number of flaws in this post. Usually it's helpful to read a study before pointing out flaws in it.
- Ensorceled 7y ago1 flaw. Missed the part where the also had black painted cows. Still doesn't cover the other 2 issues.
- oh_sigh 7y agoPoint 3 is also covered in the study.
- csunbird 7y agoor maybe flies simply do not like the smell of paint and went to bite the ones without paint. Maybe if you paint all cows they continue biting the same, since they will rather bite cows with paint smell instead of dying of starvation
- lonelappde 7y agoIt seems a different group did the same research last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19212086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19212086 And if I recall this was also in the news several years ago.
- pvaldes 7y agoNature always in the middle of our way. Is so annoying that we can't turn Africa in a huge cow field... (roll eyes). On the other way, milk fortified with Antimony white, or even better the sweet white lead paint, would do surprising things to children health...
- patall 7y agoIt would be awesome if you could do this is a cowshed. Add a stripe projecting light source in the resting area so cows can ruminate with less disturbance.
- k_sze 7y ago6 cows doesn’t seem like a significant enough sample. Anecdotally, I tend to attract mosquitoes a lot more than some other members of my family. I would imagine the same phenomenon is true among cows.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoI know of that phenomena! I had a Scout, after 6 days on Isle Royale and we were joking about our mosquito bites and how we looked like we all had rickets, calmly said "Mosquitoes don't bite me." We all looked at him, and he didn't have a bite/blemish on him. Nothing. Not one. I told him, you put that in a bottle and you'll be an instant millionaire.
- openasocket 7y agoI know that the swelling and itching from a mosquito bite is actually an allergic reaction to the mosquito's saliva. It's possible he was getting bitten, but was one of the few that doesn't have that allergic reaction.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoAlways the skeptic! Most of us know instantly when we get bit by a mosquito.
- newman8r 7y agoI'm one of those people who doesn't seem to get attacked by mosquitoes when camping or backpacking. I haven't thought about it until now, but I've NEVER actually felt myself getting bitten by them. If they're really thick I will end up getting maybe 1 or two bites, but I can't ever recall the feeling of actually getting bitten.
- Falling3 7y agoI've been bitten by a lot of mosquitoes and never once been aware of it happening. I don't think anyone I know has ever claimed to know when it was happening either.
- softwaredoug 7y agoCould this be applied to cut down on the drugs we need to give cattle?
- sgt 7y agoI think the sample size is too low. I am willing to bet that once you start doing this, the flies will start adapting and learning - eventually completely ignoring the stripes after a few generations.
- elliekelly 7y agoI wonder if you could then remove the stripes and start the confused fly cycle over again?
- rudolph9 7y agoWith enough time I 100% agree but considering the flys have not adapted for centuries to biting zebras with their stripes I’m skeptical this will happen any time soon.
- raducu 7y agoZebras only existed for centuries?
- msla 7y agoIf you've existed for a million centuries you've existed for centuries.
- sgt 7y agoI think you underestimate fly intelligence. There's been a lot of research done on e.g. fruit flies, and they are pretty intelligent compared to their neuron count, showing a simple thought process before acting.
- Gene_Parmesan 7y agoBut the point is, the theory with the most current support for why zebras have stripes is that they help the zebras avoid biting flies. As far as I understand it, it's not about intelligence, it's about confusing the flies' ability to detect movement. That's where this idea came from -- from research on zebra striping.
- scotty79 7y agoI think the article doesn't mention that but this is inspired by previous research on zebras, done to explain why zebras have evolved this kind of pattern.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- steamer25 7y agoI've heard that the stripes make it difficult to track an individual zebra against the backdrop of the whole herd. I.e., a lion might start chasing zebra A, but become disoriented and move onto zebra B who hasn't been worn down from direct pursuit. Researchers have supposedly observed that individual zebras marked with red paint smears tend to get eaten sooner.
- protomyth 7y agoSomehow 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. I'd like some more research given that cows come in black / white patterns, pure white, and pure black. Is stripes really a thing and how about the other patterns? Do we start breading for color now?
- buryat 7y agoWill it work for humans?
- orblivion 7y agoThis sounds like an episode of Looney Tunes. I wonder how long before the flies evolve to bother zebras?
- Gpetrium 7y agoIt would be interesting to see whether certain flies evolutionary traits may develop if we start painting cows. It is entirely possible that Zebra stripes serves as a 'radar jammer' to flies and that it could help decrease fly bites, further studies may be of interest in this area. If evolutionary traits are likely to occurs, it is worth noting that the size of cow (1,400,000,000) [1] and zebra (800,000)[2] population may have an impact on how fast these traits evolve to cope with the new normal. [1] https://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/global-livestock-counts https://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/global-li... [2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/where-do-zebras-live.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/where-do-zebras-live.htm...
- Someone 7y agohttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223447 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...: ”The treatments were black-and-white painted stripes, black painted stripes, and no stripes (all-black body surface)” Weird that they didn’t have a fourth group with white painted stripes. Now, the group with black-and-white painted stripes is the only one that has white paint applied, so it could as well be that the white paint causes the difference.
- anw 7y agoVery interesting article. I would love to drive by fields of zebra-painted cows, however it does make me wonder if there were other elements at play. From the plos.org article above: "Biting flies are attracted to their host animals by odors, shape, movement, brightness, color, polarization and body temperature" By painting on an animal, you are now changing not just the color (and perceived shape, which affects perception of movement), but also the odor (due to the paints) and perhaps interfering with how the flies will perceive the body temperature of the animal, too. It would also be interesting to see how these specific data points compare between zebras and the cows used for these kinds of tests.
- anon1m0us 7y agoIf that's the case, then the flies will evolve to ignore the changes and adapt to the new zebra cows. This is a short term fix at best.
- Eric_WVGG 7y agoif that was the case, flies would have evolved to adapt to zebras by now.
- anon1m0us 7y agoIt only repels 50% of the bites though. Thus, those that bite, will survive and make babies. Some of them will be able to bite, others not. Eventually, only those that can bite will survive. I don't see how it can go the other way. Where eventually since only half of them bite, that ratio declines to zero. Can that happen with evolution? I suppose there is a tipping point where if enough of the population can't find each other then they all die alone. Like rats in Alberta.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoClearly the disruptive startup idea here is yoga pants for cows. Well, yoga body suits. /s I love the result. Given the farm automation for feeding, perhaps an automatic paint job could be added to that system as well.