Cows painted with zebra stripes can deter biting flies better, 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology winners show.

The 2025 Ig Nobel prize in biology honored Japanese researchers who discovered that black cows painted with vertical white stripes were less desirable to biting flies than their counterparts that didn’t look like zebras. This work, led by Tomoki Kojima, a researcher at the Aichi Agricultural Research Center, may offer a more environmentally friendly way (than pesticides) to repel cattle pests. The researchers’ findings also support a leading theory on why zebras evolved stripes, an open question in wildlife research.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Kojima said about receiving the prize. “I thought I was dreaming.”

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