5 ms·
Here's the end of the actual study, which sums up the "why" decently. >Our working hypothesis now is that horseflies are attracted to equid hosts owing to a co
by boomboomsubban 4y ago
Here's the end of the actual study, which sums up the "why" decently.
>Our working hypothesis now is that horseflies are attracted to equid hosts owing to a combination of odour at a distance, then size of the animal contrasted against the sky or vegetation at a middle distance. But at close range, where they can no longer see the body's outline, flies make a visual switch to local features. If these are small dark objects contrasted against a light or white background, the horsefly no longer recognizes this as a host target and veers away. The contrast of stripes and their relatively small size are therefore the key elements of how stripes operate to thwart fly landings.
- prennert 4y agoMaybe they suffer from the barber pole problem. Since there is only an edge, and no corners, the flies cannot localise themselves when they are too close. Without corners, they wont be able to visually tell whether or not they get closer to the target, not if they move along the edge. If the stripes are non-homogeneous. They wont be able to tell neither how far they moved across them either.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoI believe that was one of the things tested, and is tentatively being ruled out. They found that checkerboard patterns had a similar effect. I could be reading the paper wrong though.