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Scientists have provided new evidence to answer an old question about why there are lines on the body of the zebra, designed to deceive the insect vampire horses, which feed on the blood of this species of animal. Animals and transmit deadly diseases.
On Wednesday, the researchers highlighted experiments that had revealed that flies had difficulty landing on the body of the zebra, while easily landing on the body of horses of the same color.
In one experiment, researchers put caps on the bodies of horses and noted that there were fewer flies compared to the number of flies that landed on the bodies of the same horses when scientists applied them blankets monochrome.
"We have noticed that horse flies are approaching the corpses of donkeys and wild horses at the same rate, but fail to land on wild donkeys covered with a blanket," said Tim Caro of the University of California at Davis and head of the research team published in the newspaper Square One. Lines because he can not slow his pace properly, so he goes beyond it or literally bangs in and bounces. "
The shapes of the lines vary on the bodies of wild donkeys and there are not two identical ones.
The researchers recorded videos of horse flies trying to attack wild donkeys and domesticated horses in a stable in North Somerset, England.
The lines did not dissuade distant flies, where wild horses and donkeys were surrounded in the same way, but flies fell less frequently on the bodies of wild donkeys than horses at less than a quarter.
University of Bristol biologist Martin Hao, co-author of the study, said the lines may have misled the flies, while the insects were getting close enough to see them with their eyes down. resolution.
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