Scientists Dressed Horses Like Zebras To Figure Out Why They Have Stripes (vice.com) 101
Why do zebras have stripes? From a report: Evolutionary biologists have proposed many possible theories, such as camouflage or vision aids for recognizing individual zebras. But in recent years, pest control has emerged as the leading explanation for zebra stripes. Researchers led by Tim Caro, an evolutionary ecologist at UC Davis, set out to test this idea in the field. The results, published Wednesday in PLOS ONE, reveal that stripes are a powerful deterrent to horse flies, a common nuisance that suck blood and bite flesh. The experiment managed to find the most delightful way to help explain these uniquely patterned coats -- by getting horses to cosplay as zebras.
Friggin furries (Score:1)
Not enough to dress themselves up as zebras, now they are doing it to horses?
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I think this is more stripe-dressing scientists, but we might be splitting mares here.
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I would assume that a fly is not smart enough to see from a distance whether something is natural fur and hide or an impenetrable blanket, so the scientists likely kept a close eye on the horses to see how many flies TRIED to bite them.
Re: Friggin furries (Score:2)
I remember reading (Score:5, Interesting)
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This too is a product of evolution. Flies are just a worse scourge on the zebras than lions...
Many theories are out there (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading somewhere that the stripes were a product of evolution. Apparently, it is to confuse their primary predator, the lion. Since lions see only in black and white, the stripes are designed to confuse and disorient the lion.
Yes that is one theory. However it hasn't really been objectively verified. Kind of hard to do a double blind study on something like that if you get what I'm saying. That theory might be true or it might be completely irrelevant to how it happened. Most zebras are not killed by lions so it's quite plausible that lions did not create a significant evolutionary pressure regarding the stripes.
Re:Many theories are out there (Score:4, Funny)
I have here this tiger-repelling rock. You know it works because there are no tigers around.
Natural selection does not have intent (Score:2)
... or the adaptation worked out as intended
There is no intent to natural selection [wikipedia.org]. It happens but it's not a process with a design.
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Good point. I feel there's a whole lot of wishy washy handwaving done with evolution by people who don't have an indepth knowledge of evolution. I will agree I am someone who doesn't know it as well as many. I do see however many people who seem to have a superficial understanding and who have a lot of anthropomorphic views on it. Ie, that evolution leads from to better organisms, that some creatures are more evolved than others, that there's a "reason" or goal for evolution and that every facet of an o
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You can see something like this in the Serengeti - the zebras will stand shoulder to shoulder facing different directions. Obviously it does not really hide the fact that there are zebras, what it does is confuse the predators as to the numbers that are there, and makes it harder to distinguish individuals to target - the first step in isolating a victim from the herd.
However, considering the Serengeti is right in the middle of tsetse fly territory - the lowlands around it are infested - it makes sense as a
That's how you get skunks (Score:5, Funny)
I think the next step is to see if the same applies to smaller animals. take a cat, paint a white stripe down its back and see what happens...
They've tried that and it results in amorous skunks with bad French accents [wikipedia.org].
Re:Many theories are out there (Score:4, Informative)
To test this theory some researchers painted a big stripe (I think it was red) on one zebra in a herd. The lions had no problem killing that one because it stood out and they could track it in isolation even when it was among other Zebras. There may be other benefits to Zebras having stripes, but we do know that it is an adaptation against primary predators.
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Didn't they do something similar with ships in WW II? Paint them with funny patterns to confuse subs or enemies trying to target them?
I think something similar gets done when car companies test prototypes on the public streets, they give them these weird zigzag paint schemes which I think is meant to confuse the autofocus on cameras.
Re:Many theories are out there (Score:4, Informative)
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That's more of a WWI thing. I'm into WWII naval camouflage and I haven't seen an example of zebra dazzle camouflage then. The later war USN patterns, while you could call them dazzle patterns, were not the WWI jagged black and white stripes.
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The fly articles say they think it helps against flies because of their crappy vision... something about the stripes makes it so they can't calculate how to land. They swerve or bounce off zebras.
I've heard the part about lions, too. Seems like the stripes have a few uses. And I think they mention it keeps zebras cooler than their often mostly dark colored cousins.
It's strange that not more animals have black and white stripes... but there are a few. I wonder what studies are done with them.
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How about scientists make it a more interactive study.
I've been kind enough to ship a set of Zebra patterned lab coats with pockets filled with excrement to them to test for fly and lion abatement testing..
All in the name of science of course.
Insert your favorite lawye...er scientist joke here.
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Not color blind (Score:5, Informative)
Since lions see only in black and white,
Lions see color [lionaid.org] just fine. Not quite the same as us but definitely not black and white.
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1. compare incidence per capita of lion attacks on zebras vs horses
2. dress horses up with tiger stripes
3. dress horses up with cheetah spots
4. dress horses up a penguins
5. dress zebras up as horses
6. dress lions up as zebras
7. dress scientists up like horses
8. dress horses up as scientists - compare efficacy of acquiring grants
9. dress monkeys as cowboys and train them to ride dogs like horses [google.com]
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Except lions, like all cats, can see colours, just not as many as a human can. This can be attributed to more rods in the retina to aid hunting in low light conditions.
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Everything about an organism is a product of evolution.
The next line of research... (Score:1, Funny)
Are the black stripes wrongfully profiled by the flies to attack them more often than the white.
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Crisscrossdressing is a sin, Son!
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They are, indeed, color blind, but if I understand correctly they're only red-green color blind, not totally so.
Why do we say "why"? (Score:2)
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But "why" implies design, not random advantageous mutations.
Or put differently: if we use "why", the only answer can be "evolution." Then everything else becomes "how" (the mechanism) and "what" (the advantage) questions.
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No, "why" can be cause, not necessarily intent.
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Because it's more concise than "what selective advantage did stripes provide" and conveys pretty much the same idea to the expected audience. It's also a simpler and less technical variant of the question, so it appeals to a broader audience.
Not sure if correct (Score:1)
I still do not fully understand the evolutionary reasoning here. If horse flies are a "nuisance", why was there evolutionary pressure to avoid them?
Generally speaking, according to the point equilibrium evolutionary theory, there should only be a trivial level of positive selection for traits that reduce trivial problems, and the selection should disappear once the problem disappeared. Are horse flies a continuous and meaningful problem for zebras? Furthermore, there cannot be an initial barrier to the posi
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Biting insects are merely a 'nuisance' when not carrying an epidemic or with reasonable feeding levels.
Biting insects may have propagated a devastating plague applying pressure to the population. The warm climate might have also facilitated an overpopulation of biting insects so severe it would actually substantially impact the nourishment of the animals they fed on.
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Moose calves die if they have too many ticks.
https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... [theatlantic.com]
I don't know much about horse flies though.
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Yes, exactly. Ticks are well known to cause serious issues and serve as a vector for many diseases, Lyme disease being the most well known. But I've never heard of horseflies doing the same, and they exist all over the world. I would also expect many different species to develop horsefly-specific traits if they were such a problem as well, not just zebras, but I haven't heard or seen anything about that either.
Not new (Score:5, Informative)
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If I were a fly, I would avoid having to deal with blankets too!
Re: Not new (Score:1)
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No. Common sense cannot trump rigorous scientific study. It can either agree or disagree, but when it disagrees, it's wrong. The earth does revolve around the sun.
Yeah but (Score:2)
What about zebra flies?
Wild Boyz research institute (Score:2)
Would this work for people? (Score:2)
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Definitely. Where ever you're wearing the clothing the files wouldn't bite you. Just be sure to also wear gloves and a decent head covering. And seal the cracks.
FWIW, some flies are attracted more by scent than by color. But clothing is still a defense.
Why not the others? (Score:3)
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No, that's not the same experiment. That's showing that flies don't prefer white skin over black skin. The duplicate would compare the bites on a striped animal against the bites on a non-striped animal..and for picking the color of the non-striped animal the experiment you referred to (which I don't know about) would be valuable as a "don't care" modifier.
If horses were zebras... (Score:2)
Why do I have keep having visuals (Score:2)