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The Deception of Painted-on Eyes
A group of researchers in Botswana discovered that if you painted an extra pair of eyes on the backsides of cows, it reduced their chances of being preyed upon by wildlife predators. Rather than building fences or deploying other elaborate solutions to protecting cattle populations, they pulled out an old trick from the book of evolution.
Because predators usually pounced on unsuspecting cows from behind, the study showed that the presence of eyes at the rear ends of the cows deterred the predators from launching stealth attacks on the herd. In the 4-year long study, the researchers separated the herd into three groups. They painted the deceptive eyes on one group, marked two X signs in place of the deceptive eyes on another group, and didn’t put any markings on the third group. While the results were not conclusive enough to establish a theory, the potential that such a simple solution could go a long way in protecting wildlife, domestic herds and the relationship between human communities and conservationists was huge.
The question is how did the researchers come upon the knowledge that led to this seemingly simple solution?
On a field trip, Neil Jordan watched a lion stalk an impala for 30 minutes but suddenly abandon his prey when the antelope turned and…
