Painting a cow like a zebra keeps away pests according to Ig-Nobel-winning Japanese research

Dare I say they just look better this way too.

On 18 September, the Ig Nobel Prize committee held a ceremony to honor this year’s winners, whose scientific and academic research both advances our lives while also being funny. In that way, you could say that winning an Ig Nobel Prize is an even bigger honor than a Nobel Prize.

So Japan should feel incredibly proud that for the 19th consecutive year an Ig Nobel has been awarded to one of the country’s boldest researchers. This year’s recipient is Tomoki Kojima from the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization for his breakthrough finding that painting Japanese Black cattle with stripes like a zebra is effective at repelling blood-sucking insects, like stable flies.

▼ As usual, the entire ceremony is free to watch on YouTube. This video is cued to Kojima’s acceptance.

The research was carried out on six head of Japanese Black cattle. Two were painted with stripes to resemble a zebra, another pair got black stripes that were not very visible on the animal’s black hair, and the remaining two were untouched. The cattle were then monitored to see how often they used their heads and tails to shoo away insects, and the flies that landed on them were also regularly tallied.

As a result, it was found that the zebra-striped cattle had half as many flies landing on them, and they also exhibited fewer shooing actions than the other two pairs. This finding could lead to an alternative form of pest control that doesn’t require potentially harmful chemicals.

▼ Kojima revealed a zebra-striped shirt under his suit while accepting the awards to repel insects puppeteered by his colleagues.

Frequent bites from insects cause cattle stress and affect their ability to eat and rest, which in turn harms their ability to gain weight or produce milk. If this method can be applied to other breeds of cattle, it could prevent significant economic losses in the dairy and meat industries.

Kojima remarked about the win, “I was very surprised by it. It’s an honor and I’m still processing it.” Readers of the news were also thrilled to see another win for Japan and despite the quirkiness of zebra-cattle, most comments felt this was a very important discovery.

“That’s great! I’ve been following this research. I want to try a checkered pattern and see if it works even better.”
“People often criticize Japan for not being innovative, but I think the Ig Nobel awards show we can be.”
“I wonder if it’s because some animals recognize stripes as the mark of a predator.”
“Can we make human clothing like this too? Maybe something with dye that’s only visible to insects.”
“I heard somewhere in Africa they paint huge eyes on the butts of cattle to protect them from predators.”
“I heard about this before, but now it’s been proven! I wonder if it’s because they can’t see the cattle well enough with those markings.”
“That’s interesting, but it would be a hassle to paint and repaint the cows if you have a lot of them.”

There are a lot of other things to consider before this becomes an established agricultural technique, but it is a very important step to confirm that zebra stripes do have a positive effect on pest control.

Perhaps this can also be applied to people somehow. There are certainly enough tattooed people out there to see if certain patterns keep bugs away better than others. And who knows? This could even lead to a future Ig Nobel Prize for whoever takes on the research.

Source: Improbable Research, Yomiuri Shimbun Online, Yahoo! Japan News
Images: YouTube/Improbable Research
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