Why do zebra stripes act as natural bug repellents? 

You are wearing a black T-shirt and a hoard of mosquitos is hounding you while your friend, standing by you, isn’t facing the same issue. He is wearing white. It is a common belief that darker colours attract more insects and mosquitos. Do you know the same principle applies to the zebra stripes? Yes, there is a reason why zebras are born with those distinguished stripes. It acts as a camouflage and protection against blood-sucking insects. The same goes for those tribal people who you see with faces painted in white stripes. Here’s the science behind it.  

Zebra stripes  
Most mammals look boring with solid coats of brown or grey. Bold patterns like on a zebra are rare indeep. But why do they have distinguished patterns? It has mostly been understood that these patterns create camouflage confusing big predators, give identity signal to other zebras and offer a type of air conditioner for these animals. But lately, most scientists agree that the black and white zebra stripes are meant to drive away biting flies carrying deadly diseases. 

Tribal body paintings  
Similarly, when we think of tribal people in Africa, Australia and other places, we mostly visualise dark brown-skinned people with traditional body-paintings mostly in white. But why is that? Researchers have reasoned that those designs may offer these people protection from the blood-sucking horseflies abundant in those areas. 

Researchers have concluded from various experiments that a dark brown body with white stripes has the lowest chance of attracting horseflies than fair-skinned bodies while dark-skinned bodies have the highest chances of getting infested. Similarly, the colour of our clothes also affects our attractiveness to horseflies and other biting flies. Wearing any reflective material attracts horseflies because they look similar to water, where the insects lay their eggs. 

What does science say? 
But what exactly is it about a zebra’s body pattern that flies don’t like? Or about those heavily painted faces of tribals that drives insects away?  

Well, there is no definite answer. But scientists believe that there are high chances that the absolute contrast between black (or dark skin) and white tricks the low-resolution vision of insects. They rely on sensing movement. Maybe, the stripes help in just drawing their vision away. For example, flies may interpret zebra as grey from a distance. But when they come closer to the animal, the sudden appearance of bold and distinct diagonal stripes may overload their vision and confuse them.  
 
Zebra facts  

• The stripes are unique to each zebra like our fingerprints 
• Also, each species of zebra has different types of stripes  
• These animals always stick together in herds