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Science

Cows Painted Like Zebras Attract Fewer Flies (cnn.com) 118

Posted by BeauHD from the tedious-but-effective-solutions dept.
Slashdot reader ClickOnThis writes: An article on CNN reports results from a team of Japanese researchers who discovered that painting cows to look like zebras makes them less attractive to biting flies. I think they're a shoo-in for a 2020 Ig Nobel Prize. From the article: "A team of Japanese researchers recruited six cows and gave them each black-and-white stripes, black stripes and no stripes. They took photos of the cow's painted right side, counting the number of bites as they happened and watching how the cows reacted. While unpainted cows and cows with black stripes endured upward of 110 bites in 30 minutes, the black-and-white cows suffered fewer than 60 in the same period, researchers found. Zebras' stripes have more than aesthetic value; they help fend off bloodsuckers. Past studies have proven flies are less likely to land on black-and-white surfaces -- the polarization of light impairs their perception, so they can't properly decelerate, researchers wrote." The downside is that ranchers would need to spray down their cows multiple times a week for best results. "But fewer bites would improve the health of the cows, which would benefit the economy," reports CNN. "Plus, subbing in paint for pesticides would benefit the environment and human health, too, researchers said."

The study has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
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Cows Painted Like Zebras Attract Fewer Flies More

Cows Painted Like Zebras Attract Fewer Flies

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  • Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @12:27AM (#59286612)

    They "recruited" six cows? What'd they do, offer them free hay for a year if the cows volunteered?

  • Let's just eat Zebra burgers (Score:3)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @12:34AM (#59286622)
    Painting all those cows sounds like a lot of work.

    • Painting all those cows sounds like a lot of work.

      An obvious solution is to use CRISPR-Cas9 to breed striped cattle.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Indeed, it is already known that cows with spots get the same effect [smithsonianmag.com]. So yeah, put down the CRISPR and just breed more cows with spots.

          • ......I wondered if the mosquitoes are simply out off by the chemical smell of paint.

            • Re: Let's just eat Zebra burgers (Score:5, Informative)

              by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @02:58AM (#59286800)

              ......I wondered if the mosquitoes are simply out off by the chemical smell of paint.

              No. They controlled for that by painting some cows solid white or solid black.

              If it was the smell of the paint then they should have also experienced fewer bites. They didn't.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by green1 ( 322787 )
                Sort of, they painted already black cows either black and white, or just black. It doesn't appear that they painted any just white. So they didn't control for anything in the white paint (either smell, or visual lightening) This is especially important because it's been shown previously that lighter colours attract fewer flies, so the stripes may not be what did it, but rather just that the cows were overall a lighter colour.

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                  This is especially important because it's been shown previously that lighter colours attract fewer flies, so the stripes may not be what did it, but rather just that the cows were overall a lighter colour.

                  That has already been tested, as reported in the introduction of the paper:

                  Stripes narrower than a critical width (approximately 5 cm) and spots smaller than a threshold size (diameter approximately 10 cm) effectively prevent biting flies from landing and these surfaces attract fewer biting flies than whit

        • Re: Let's just eat Zebra burgers (Score:5, Funny)

          by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @02:47AM (#59286788)

          They did try painting them with an arrow shaped pattern, but that just attracted time flies.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hawk ( 1151 )

            I paint mine with roses.

            Now they smell *so* much better . . . :)

            hawk

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            They did try painting them with an arrow shaped pattern, but that just attracted time flies.

            They also tried using CRISPR to hybridize them with fruit, but they spontaneously grew wings and flew away, like a banana is wont to do.

        • I thought the titular cow was white with black spots.

          No need to be rude, they aren't tits, they are called udders.

          • Actually the four "nipples" are called teats. The udder is the entire organ where the teats are attached.

            * former dairy worker

      • Why not just start raising and eating zebra?

        • That's gross! Zebras would hate dying and being eaten! (Cows must love it!) Or we can just eat an impossible burger instead.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            too many carbs, there are 50% as many carbs as there is protein, and 5 times the amount of sodium. besides I'm more of a flat iron steak kind of guy, but 85/15 ground chuck isnt bad. Bunless burgers get boring really damn fast though.

        • Why not just start raising and eating zebra?

          Zebras are aggressive and dangerous. They are unpredictable and may attack without provocation.

      • Or put a blanket on the cows. Not only could you print it, you could also make it from a material that blocks fly stings.

        • Flies don't sting, they bite. Opposite ends of the body involved: one is for combat while the other is for feeding.

    • Painting all those cows sounds like a lot of work.

      You just need an innovative solution, just like at Veridian Dynamics: https://youtu.be/2SLFlNH0TLY?t=45 [youtu.be]

    • Good luck farming zebra.

    • More jobs, making this country GREAT!

  • Useless? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by eminencja ( 1368047 )

    But fewer bites would improve the health of the cows, which would benefit the economy

    This is useless, unless you can demonstrate a link to the carbon footprint - CO2 is the way to go! (And links to other gases for that matter, such as methane, which is even worse than CO2.) For example - do couch belch less when they are bitten less?

    • If you feed cows a diet with around 2% seaweed, the methane problem goes away completely.

      Of course that doesn't help the activists who want to use climate change to drive their vegan agenda, so you don't really hear about it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Sique ( 173459 )
        The methane problem is a completely different type of shoe. If we manage to stop producing methane right now (including all natural sources of methane), the atmosphere will be methane free by mid-2020. Methane doesn't stay for long in the atmosphere, it gets destroyed by sunlight.

        If we stop producing CO2 right now (again with shutting down all natural sources of CO2), the atmosphere will keep their CO2 content ad infinitum. Mars and Venus for instance keep their 95% CO2 atmosphere since about 4.6 billion

        • Except that noone said stop eating cows because CO2. They said stop eating cows because they fart methane. They cite that methane is 20x worse than co2. However, grass/fed cows fart less than grain fed. So there are solutions that dont propel vegans front and center. But, as churchill once said, never squander a good crisis.

          Why noone worries about pig farming, which has to be some of the biggest methane producers out there, I have no idea. Probably because bacon is awesome.

        • Methane decomposes into mostly CO2, so the methane problem IS the CO2 problem, after it is the methane problem.

          The CO2 will NOT remain in the atmosphere forever. However, the natural systems which normally solve the CO2 problem cannot handle the current rate — most CO2 is absorbed by the ocean making it more acidic, and then it reacts with subaquatic limestone and becomes more basic again. That's why we have this oceanic acidification problem. But over the long term it will deal with the CO2. It's the

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sique ( 173459 )
            Methane has about 100 times the greenhoiuse effect of CO2 and H2O, the gasses remaining as the end product of Methane decomposition. So the CO2 problem by blowing Methane into the atmosphere is rather neglegible.

            And while CO2 is indeed going into ocean water and making it more acidic, most of it stays in the atmosphere, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the amount of CO2 reveals that is necessary to increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere from 270 ppm in 1900 to 410 ppm today.

    • " do couch belch less when they are bitten less?"

      If your couch belches when you bite it, you may have other problems.

  • So far (Score:3)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @12:50AM (#59286662) Journal

    This is the result of the theory zebras are as they are because the strips play havoc with a fly's simple brain as it flies by, which watches for moving patterns of darkness, signaling an animal trying to eat or swat it.

    It's rather clever and worth a try. Shut up, Ig Nobel. You're off base on this one.

  • Cross-dressed cows are an abomination! Don't risk the wrath of God, dear Sir! Each to their own kind.

  • Why not tattoo the stripes on them?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yah, they could have a TV show Extreme Bovine Tattooing. Come to it though, I think just letting a few of the tattoo artists loose the pasture would scare the shit out of flies and make them leave.

    • Because nobody can see their skin under the fur?

  • Why not compare with actual zebras? (Score:3)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @01:05AM (#59286676)
    Why not compare with actual zebras? That would eliminate the human painting factor: pain smell and other factors.

    • Why not compare with actual zebras? That would eliminate the human painting factor: pain smell and other factors.

      To test the effects of striping in isolation from any other zebra specific factors.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ed_1024 ( 744566 )

      Because youd have to spray paint some of the Zebras black or white to get some control in the experiment. Back to square one...

  • Painting robot for cows on Kickstarter (Score:3)

    by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @01:32AM (#59286694)

    They can be painted while they get milked.
    Now that would be a huge success on Kickstarter.

  • Many horses go as zebras nowadays (Score:5, Informative)

    by weberjn ( 771517 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @01:40AM (#59286706)

    Here in Germany you see many horses covered with a zebra design blanket grazing on the meadows.

    https://www.amazon.de/Fliegend... [amazon.de]

  • They should have included a control group with cows that were completely covered in white paint to exclude the possibility that flies just don't like white.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      ...or that flies just don't like the smell/taste of paint.

    • Why not a control group with zebras painted over in their existing pattern?

      Change as few things at once as possible.

      • How would that be a control group? Zebras contain an unknown number of other fly-perceptible differences - starting with smell as a certain one.

        It'd be like testing a cat medicine, and using a bunch of orangutans as the control group - completely irrelevant and only going to cloud your results.

        • The idea is that they think this is an effect in zebras, so they're trying it in cows, but that's 2 changes at once: species and paint.

          So, eliminate one difference (paint composition) by using it in the original species to verify nothing changes. If the pattern remains the same, but the frequency changes, you know something about the paint besides the pattern is the source of the effect.

          • That's why they have a control group of *cows* painted one color which did not see a reduction. That eliminates the paint itself as the repelling factor. The black paint anyway - their control group probably should have had some white-painted cows, as well as some mixed black-and-white grey cows, in case it was something about the combination of pigments causing the difference.

            Also - zebras are wild animals, dealing with them is far more dangerous than with cows, to say nothing of the ethics of experime

  • Convection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rizole ( 666389 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @03:16AM (#59286822)

    There's also the theory that the small scale convection currents created by a temperature difference between the black and white stripes makes it harder for flies to land.

    https://phys.org/news/2019-06-... [phys.org]

  • anyone has really tried this? did it work?

  • Downside (Score:3)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @04:16AM (#59286906) Journal

    This sounds like the perfect plan to breed flies with better vision/flying skills.

    • Re:Downside (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @08:20AM (#59287350) Homepage Journal

      This sounds like the perfect plan to breed flies with better vision/flying skills.

      Zebra have been around for 2-4 million years. This hasn't resulted in flies with better vision skills yet.

      • This sounds like the perfect plan to breed flies with better vision/flying skills.

        Zebra have been around for 2-4 million years. This hasn't resulted in flies with better vision skills yet.

        You don't know that. There's one looking at you right now.

    • This sounds like the perfect plan to breed flies with better vision/flying skills.

      Apparently hasn't happened in Africa. I suspect it's a much more complex change than tweaking pigment patterns.

  • We have those in Europe. I believe they are called Jersey cows.

  • This will really piss off the cow dip industry

  • It seems obvious to me that painting yourself a few times a week would repel biting insects by masking your body's natural aroma with the smell and physical barrier from whatever chemicals are used in the paint. I mean if you are going to do this, you may as well throw some citronella right? While it may be interesting that black and white stripes also have an affect any practical application of this is bad news for meat eaters and our environment as these paints as used by your local rancher will not be ma

  • Striped shirt (Score:3)

    by OlRickDawson ( 648236 ) on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @07:09AM (#59287126)
    Would people wearing striped shirts be bit less than those wearing solid colors? That would be an interesting test and would further this theory. I'm not volunteering for that test, though.

    • Would people wearing striped shirts be bit less than those wearing solid colors?

      In a study, 8 out of 10 referees prefer Shirts vs. Skins.

  • Please illustrate this story in a one panel "Far Side", so I can comprehend it better.
  • I suspect the first rancher able to successfully breed in zebra stripes into cattle could have a lucrative breeding rights business if it can be proven the less bites would yield lower veterinarian costs and healthier cattle. Plus the novelty of the leather could fetch a good price. Of course I think lions could also enjoy these new fat and lazy zebras too if they were to wander into a reserve.

  • >The water-based paint faded within a few days, so while it's a less invasive solution than a pesticide-laced ear tag, it's a short-term one. Ranchers would need to spray down thousands of cows multiple times a week for best results.

    If they'd use lead-based paint, they wouldn't have to repaint the cows quite as often. But then there goes the environmental safety factor...

  • I wonder if part of the reason for fewer bites is that some flies don't recognize zebra striped cows as valid targets. They should test how flies behave toward cows that are strange colors, like orange and green. They should also see whether flies in areas where zebras are native are less affected by the zebra pattern cow painting, though that could be the result of a number of factors.

  • I think they're a shoo-in for a 2020 Ig Nobel Prize.

    :eyeroll:

  • ... existing technology in the form of CRISPR.

  • If it is the pattern, a $2 bottle of chlorine bleach, properly diluted, would have the same effect on a dark animal. Black hair die would fix the light colored ones. Why in the world would they test with paint? Were they worried about the value of the cow leather?

  • DUH!
    Anybody want to bet that cows painted - with ANYTHING overall - like paint, whether black & white, all white, or all black - AND NOT JUST STRIPS / STRIPES in a pattern that doesn't completely cover the side of the hide, will attract fewer pests - BASICALLY . . .
    because a full paint covering HIDES THE HIDE -lol-

  • Just add a raspberry controlled gizmo at the end of the milking machine that inspects and retouches the zebra style of the milked cows.

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