Safety in Stripes

Body painting is a culturally significant practice in many indigenous tribes, and recent research suggests it could have hidden health benefits. While specific patterns vary widely between tribes, pale stripes are a common feature, as pictured here in examples from Africa. Inspired by studies suggesting that zebra stripes may help deter biting flies from landing, researchers investigated whether striped body paintings could have similar advantages for humans. To test this, they used plastic mannequins, with and without striped patterns, and coated them with a sticky substance to trap horseflies (Tabanidae) landing on each model type. As predicted, horseflies appeared to avoid stripes: over several weeks in the field, a plain brown model attracted 10 times more flies than one with white stripes. Although the patterns of body paintings are clearly culturally-driven, a reduced risk of painful horsefly bites, and potential disease transmission from other insects, could be a welcome by-product of these traditions.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image by Gábor Horváth and colleagues
• Environmental Optics Laboratory, Department of Biological Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal, January 2019