Body-Painting Protects Against Bloodsucking Insects

Human models used in the experiment

Photo: Gabor Horvath

Most of the indigenous communities who paint their bodies live in areas where there is an abundance of bloodsucking horseflies, mosquitoes or tsetse flies. When these insects bite people there is a risk of bacteria, parasites and other pathogens being transferred.

The study shows that body-painting provides protection against the insects. A brown plastic model of a human attracted ten times as many horseflies as a dark model painted with white stripes. The researchers also found that a beige-coloured plastic figure used as a control model attracted twice as many bloodsuckers as the striped model.

Striped bodypaint was the most protective

Photo: Gabor Horvath

According to Susanne Åkesson, professor at Lund University’s Department of Biology, the tradition of body-painting may have developed simultaneously on different continents. It is not known when the tradition started.

“Body-painting began long before humans started to wear clothes. There are archaeological finds that include markings on the walls of caves where Neanderthals lived. They suggest that they had been body-painted with earth pigments such as ochre”, says Susanne Åkesson.

The research team has previously observed that the zebra’s stripes act as protection against horseflies. It is also known that pale fur, on horses for example, can provide protection, in contrast to dark fur. The discovery won the IgNobel Prize in Physics in 2016. In the new study, the team has taken the research a step further and examined plastic models that are the same size as adult humans.

Susanne Åkesson

Credit: Lund University