Zebra Stripes on Cows for Insect Repellent Effect! Japanese Team Wins Ig Nobel Prize in Biology
The 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners, awarded for unique research that "first makes people laugh, then makes them think," have been announced, and a Japanese research team has received the Biology Prize. The prize was awarded for the study by Tomoki Kojima and his research group at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), titled "Drawing zebra-like stripes on black cows reduces the number of fly bites by half." This marks the 19th consecutive year a Japanese national has won an Ig Nobel Prize. The prize comes with 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars and a wet tissue. Breakthrough Insect Repellent Born from a Unique Idea This research demonstrated that drawing zebra-like stripes on the bodies of Japanese Black cattle with white water-based paint significantly reduces the number of blood-sucking flies (such as stable flies) that approach them. Indeed, it has been reported that cows with zebra patterns experienced half the number of fly bites. This is a gr...