Prevention of horsefly bites ?

[TLM]

Did some digging, looks like horseflies see very limited colours, here, green, blue/violet and UV. So they do not see yellow or red that should look like black to them. So the light part could be UV, violet or green reflecting and the dark part yellow or red. Take your pick of pairs and patterns though apparently it should be some kind of alternating stripes, zebra scaling is a good start.

Of course all should be checked for UV reflectance or fluorescence.

 

[Toddy]

Sounds like Bet Lynch's frocks
There is no way on this green earth that I am wearing that.

Why does the colour matter though ? it's flesh they're after, and.....I have no idea what that looks like to a cleg
They do seem to preferentially target where the skin is thinnest, where the hot blood is near the surface.

They are sneaky hunters, they are very good at landing on something that only any reflection of light on wings or eyes shows them up. Shade, low light, they're almost invisible.

 

[TLM]

There is no way on this green earth that I am wearing that.

dark green/dark red tiger stripes might not look too bad even close up and a little farther away that would become brownish.

 

[Toddy]

so......like camouflage then ?

Why doesn't camouflage work on the blighters ?

 

[TLM]

Why doesn't camouflage work on the blighters ?

Because what now looks like camo to human eyes do not look like striped camo to horseflies, their colour perception is very different from human as the table I dug up shows. It is very difficult to imagine what the world would look like if seen in UV/violet-blue/green. As a guess they would see anything green as light patches and everything else as dark/black (unless one has washed the garment with a detergent containing brighteners).

Apparently stark contrasting STRIPES mix up horseflies image handling to a high degree,

 

[Broch]

I remain very sceptical about all this - it's more likely they are attracted to warmth or odours - maybe they even see in the IR spectrum. Certainly it's my bare arms they land on, not my dark shirt.

 

[TLM]

it's more likely they are attracted to warmth or odours - maybe they even see in the IR spectrum.

I think it is well established that mosquitoes follow gradients of heat, moisture and carbon dioxide. As a first guess those are good starting points. I found nothing that points to IR reception in insects - which of course does not negate that possibility. I think that I have met some paper that shows that some flies react to movement.

I think the zebra article concluded that the stripes prevented the flies landing attempts or at least made it much more difficult. They could see that something moved or followed the gradients but not land and bite.

Some insects are very good at detecting specific smells so I would put that high on the list too.

 

[TLM]

But all this is quite outside my experience so engineering guessing mostly

 

[Toddy]

Delighted to report.....

Toddy 3
Clegs 0



I've been in the garden this afternoon laying concrete under a gateway. Three times I got the blighters before they got me

Much chuffed

It's been a roasting hot Summer until the rains started a fortnight ago, and I think there must have been a late hatching.
Anyhow, so far I'm winning 3 - 0

 

[Broch]

Delighted to report.....

Toddy 3
Clegs 0



I've been in the garden this afternoon laying concrete under a gateway. Three times I got the blighters before they got me

Much chuffed

It's been a roasting hot Summer until the rains started a fortnight ago, and I think there must have been a late hatching.
Anyhow, so far I'm winning 3 - 0

Wish I could say the same

It's usually only after the first bite that I remember to put the repellent on!

 

[JonathanD]

Wish I could say the same

It's usually only after the first bite that I remember to put the repellent on!

It’s usually the next day with me

 

[Toddy]

I've gotten to the stage that I almost daren't risk that first bite

 

[JonathanD]

I’m not surprised after getting those reactions. Horrific. I’m quite lucky as I don’t really have a problem with bitey things in the U.K. I’ve never had any tick worries either. Except in Sherwood. They are all over the place there.

 

[Spirit fish]

I’ve been cutting hedges at work recently and had five bites in a week ! Culminating in this painful thing ..

I tried a jungle formula type repellent but it stank and did nothing ! What do you guys do ?

hate horseflies me

 

[Robson Valley]

The color matters in that it may appear to be sky-like and not a suitable place to land so keep going.

I like to catch them alive, if I can. One single, short, barbed needle from a black spruce twig, stuffed just past the anal sphincter, and all they can do on release is fly straight up.