Zebra stripes confuse bloodsucking flies and could inspire anti-bug device

Sarah Knapton, science editor

20 FEBRUARY 2019 • 7:00PM

Rudyard Kipling supposed the zebra acquired its stripes so it could blend into the forest shadows, hidden away from the leopard and man.

But the markings also hold another advantage, scientists have discovered, after finding they disorientate bothersome bloodsucking horse flies.

Researchers at Bristol University used video analysis to test whether flies were more likely to attack zebra or non-striped horses at a stables in North Somerset.

They found that although flies circled and touched horses and zebras at similar rates, they actually landed on zebras 25 per cent less often.

Continued

Flashing lights ward off livestock-hunting pumas in northern Chile

by John C. Cannon on 7 January 2019

A new paper reports that Foxlights, a brand of portable, intermittently flashing lights, kept pumas away from herds of alpacas and llamas during a recent calving season in northern Chile.

Herds without the lights nearby lost seven animals during the four-month study period.

The research used a “crossover” design, in which the herds without the lights at the beginning of the experiment had them installed halfway through, removing the possibility that the herds were protected by their locations and not the lights themselves.

Pulsating lights placed around llama and alpaca herds warded off puma attacks during a recent experiment in Chile, suggesting the method might help avert conflict between herders and dwindling populations of the predator.

“The implications are huge,” Omar Ohrens, a postdoctoral scholar in environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and lead author of a study on the findings, said in an interview.

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