Sunlit zebra stripes may confuse the thermal perception of blood vessels causing the visual unattractiveness of zebras to horseflies

Abstract Multiple hypotheses have been proposed for possible functions of zebra stripes. The most thoroughly experimentally supported advantage of zebra stripes is their visual unattractiveness to horseflies (tabanids) and tsetse flies. We propose here a plausible hypothesis why biting horseflies av...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Péter Takács, Dénes Száz, Miklós Vincze, Judit Slíz-Balogh, Gábor Horváth
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2022-08-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14619-7