Scientists believe that a function of a zebra’s stripes is to deter insects, so a team or researchers painted black and white stripes on several cows and discovered that it reduced the number of biting flies landing on the cows by more than 50%.
The same method is used for horses, you can buy horse blankets with zebra patterns. Best horse blankets I ever had, keeps most of the flies and mosquitoes away.
The reason he gave for why mosquitos don’t bite zebras (and why they won’t bite a horse wearing a coat with black and white stripes - this is the original formulation phenomenon that this was studied in) is that it is a form of dazzle camouflage:
This works by disguising movement speed to predators (or mosquitos) rather than hiding location.
In short, the stripes ‘confuse’ the mosquitos so that they are unable to land on the zebra to bite it at all, instead they simply bounce off, having been unable to correctly calculate how to land on the zebra
bjornistundwar on March 25th, 2021 at 19:50 UTC »
The same method is used for horses, you can buy horse blankets with zebra patterns. Best horse blankets I ever had, keeps most of the flies and mosquitoes away.
asianabsinthe on March 25th, 2021 at 19:58 UTC »
Cow: Wtf is happening
albrut on March 25th, 2021 at 21:03 UTC »
This is a fairly well supported hypothesis. Here is another article which a professor who taught me authored:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.1521
The reason he gave for why mosquitos don’t bite zebras (and why they won’t bite a horse wearing a coat with black and white stripes - this is the original formulation phenomenon that this was studied in) is that it is a form of dazzle camouflage:
https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/27/5/1547/1744841
This works by disguising movement speed to predators (or mosquitos) rather than hiding location.
In short, the stripes ‘confuse’ the mosquitos so that they are unable to land on the zebra to bite it at all, instead they simply bounce off, having been unable to correctly calculate how to land on the zebra
Dazzle camouflage is most famous for its use in the world wars (you can extrapolate how this works in animals from the wiki on ships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage)