Research results that tribal and ethnic body paintings have an effect to protect themselves

by Iriano Dinelli

Tribes and ethnic groups in areas where pests sucking animals such as mosquitoes and tsetse flies exist are exposed to the risk of bacteria, parasites and other pathogens. People living in such areas often have a practice of body painting, but Swedish and Hungarian researchers have proved that they have the effect of keeping insects in body paint and protecting people from disease.

Striped bodypainting protects against horseflies | Royal Society Open Science
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181325

Body-painting protects against bloodsucking insects - ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190117122711.htm

In this study, we investigated "How much insects will you draw?" Using a plastic brown model and a plastic black and white striped model. The experimental site was Hungary, and the research team painted one of three plastic models of the same size as human adults in a dark color and one body with white and black stripes. Then, when I applied an adhesive that catches insects on a model and carried out an experiment, it was said that the brown model was shown to draw insects ten times as much as the model of the striped pattern. Also, in the case of the beige model used in the control experiment, the number of insects drawn is twice that of the streak pattern model.

by icon0.com

Professor Susanne Akesson who studies biology at Lund University in Sweden said, "Body painting has been done long before humanity wears clothes.An archaeological discovery from the mural painting of the cave in which the Neanderthal people lived It also shows that body painting was done using soil like loess , "he said, although I do not know when the body painting culture started, but at the same time on different continents It shows that there is a possibility.

The research team so far, and that the zebra stripes plays a role to protect the zebra from insects to blood-sucking, and also that there is a similar role in the fur of a white horse has been shown . This research was awarded the Physics Prize of the Ignoraw Prize in 2016. This research further developed the past research and said that he used a plastic model of the same size as a human adult.

by kowloon

In this research, is there a difference between the model that you set up and the model that made it face up? It was also investigated that there was only female attracted to the model that was made to stand, and it was also shown that both the male and the female were attracted to the model facing up. In previous studies, when male drinks water and lands on the surface of the water, it approaches the water surface with the "horizontal" light reflected by the water as a signal, and the female responds to the signal in the "vertical" direction in order to suck the blood Has been shown. The research results shown in the model with vertical and horizontal are consistent with the results of such past studies.