Why bulls don't like red, a red rag for a bull (photo)

The dislike of bulls for the color red seems to be a proven fact. It’s not for nothing that a bullfighter waves a bright cloak (kapote) in front of the animal’s nose to force the animal to attack. There is even such an expression as a red rag for a bull. In addition, in almost all cultures this color symbolizes aggression and strong feelings.

As it turns out, there is much more speculation than truth in the theory about bulls and the color red. Therefore, we tell you how things really are.

Are bulls colorblind or not: bullfighting and the red cloak of the bullfighter

Trained animals of a special breed aged from 4 to 6 years are selected for bullfighting. They are fattened up to 450 kilograms and forced to move around the paddock a lot. Aggression is inherent in them by nature, and the bullfighter stabs the animal with a lance, so from the pain and noise of the crowd the animal falls into a rage.

Do cows see colors?

It is a common misconception that bulls suffer from color blindness. Mammals that are unable to visually perceive one or more colors are considered color blind. But more often this term is used to refer to a person who does not see red shades. Representatives of the bovid family recognize a palette of colors necessary for normal life: green, yellow, blue, red, black and white. But their saturation is so low that for a bull they merge into a single color. A cow has only 2 color receptors (humans have 3). Due to this feature, cattle are susceptible to shades of blue and yellow-green spectrum. They do not distinguish the color red. But this fact does not make bulls colorblind.

Diagnosis and treatment

The Ishihara test contains a series of images consisting of colored spots. The figure (usually Arabic numerals) is embedded in the design as dots of a slightly different shade, which can be distinguished by people with normal vision, but not with a certain type of disorder. The full test involves a series of images with different combinations to reveal whether the disorder is present and specifically what colors colorblind people cannot see. For children who do not yet know numbers, drawings with geometric shapes (circle, square, etc.) were developed. Diagnosis of anomalous trichromasia can also be made using an anomaloscope. Currently, there is no effective treatment for color blindness in humans. Colored lenses may be used to improve the ability to see some colors but make it more difficult to see others correctly. Scientists are conducting trials to treat color blindness using genetic engineering methods, which have already yielded positive results in a group of monkeys.

A little background on bullishness

Artiodactyls once looked different:

Some weighed up to 1 ton.
The horns were bigger.
The skin is strong and impenetrable.

Such qualities are indispensable in the wild and help protect against predators. Modern bulls have inherited these properties; herbivores have become more irritable. The need to fight for food develops a sense of competition and confrontation.

Why does a bull in a bullfight react to the color red? Zoologists managed to identify a misunderstanding: cattle do not distinguish the color spectrum. Why do matadors wear a red cape? Most of them have a pink rag with which they force the bulls to react. This is a traditional costume that has nothing to do with the psychological characteristics of the tours. Sports competitions involving artiodactyls have been held for several hundred years, during which time the deceptive association of the color red and bulls has spread among people.

At bullfights they tease the horned ones, they try to make them angry; to do this, spikes with sharp tips are stabbed into their backs; the animals bleed and defend their lives. The color red has no meaning for an angry bull.

Meager diet

The food of musk oxen is seasonal: during the short and rather cool summer, the animals have the opportunity to feast on fresh herbs, sometimes leaves of bush willows and birches, berries and mushrooms. The rest of the year they have to make do with dry plants, mosses and lichens, which they dig out from under the snow. To compensate for a very meager diet and replenish mineral reserves, immediately after the snow melts, musk oxen prefer to visit salt licks, rich in minerals.

Destruction of the myth

In 2007, Discovery Channel's Mythbusters tested a live bull in three separate experiments. Their goal was to find out why bulls don’t like the color red and whether this is actually true. The essence of the first experiment was as follows: three stationary flags of red, blue and white were installed in the arena. The animal attacked all three, regardless of shade. Next were three mannequins, and again the indiscriminate bull left no one unattended. Finally, the time has come for living people. There were three people in the arena, the one in red stood motionless, the other two cowboys moved in a circle. The bull began to chase the moving daredevils, but ignored the motionless “red” one.

Is it true that dogs are myopic?

This is another common misconception. They have weak farsightedness (approximately +0.5 diopters). For predators, visual acuity is not so important as the ability to see equally well day and night, as well as to identify a moving object. The dog is able to detect movement at a distance of up to 900m. She distinguishes the same stationary object only from 500m.

Another feature of canine vision lies in the ability to accurately determine distance. Only up close it’s harder for her to “focus.” If a person can focus on an object that is a few centimeters from the nose, then to a dog everything closer to 30-40 cm seems blurry.

How do bulls see?

Many people still use the phrase “don’t wave in front of me like a red rag in front of a bull” or something similar in their vocabulary. This phrase has long been perceived and understood literally, although this is incorrect.

If we look at the issue of color perception by cattle from the point of view of scientists and supporters of the scientific explanation of elementary concepts, we can say the following:

That bulls have poor color vision (all cattle in general);
Bulls do not perceive objects well that are at a distance from them (that is, they suffer from myopia);
The most visible and distinguishable color for bulls (for all cattle) is white.

How bulls (approximately) and humans see the world. The main thing for a bull is not color, but precisely the fact of the presence of an irritant . And to prove they were right, scientists conducted an interesting experiment. Two volunteers were invited to conduct the observation, wearing red and black suits. During the experiment, the volunteer in red stood motionless, and the person who was wearing a black suit was constantly in motion. It is not difficult to assume that the bull attacked the very person who moved and irritated him. The man in red, accordingly, remained unharmed and, moreover, was not noticed by the animal.

Scientists confirm that due to the structural features of the eyeball of cattle, individuals do not distinguish between many colors. In accordance with this, they live almost in a black and white world, focusing on smells, shapes and movements.

Movements are more of an irritant for the bull. It is the one who is moving that the bull will most likely run after. And what color the clothes are - red or blue - does not matter significantly. Most likely, the intensity of color and frequency of movement will play in favor of the animal’s speed of reaction to the stimulus, but not on its perception of the world.

Types of color blindness

The classification of types of color blindness (color vision pathologies) is based on which of the primary colors the patient does not see or has difficulty distinguishing.

Protanopia

(from the Greek protos - first, since red is conventionally considered the first color) - impaired ability to see red. This genetic mutation is more common than others. People with protanopia, looking at red objects, see them as brown, dark gray, black, and less often dark green. They perceive green as light gray, yellow or light brown.

Deuteranopia

(from the Greek deuteros - second) - pathology in the green region of the spectrum. Instead of green, a person with deuteranopia sees light orange or pink, and perceives red as brown.

Tritanopia

(from the Greek tritos - third) - allows you to see red and green with all their shades, which replace the blue part of the spectrum. The inability to perceive blue and violet is not the only defect in tritanopia - the pathology affects the functioning of the rods and leads to the absence of twilight vision.

Color blindness can be classified according to the degree of color vision impairment, depending on whether the pigment in the cones is completely absent or its amount is only limited and insufficient for full, bright vision.

Normal perception of primary colors is called trichromacy. A person who can distinguish all colors, but they appear faded and lack sufficient contrast, is diagnosed with abnormal trichromacy. If vision in a certain part of the spectrum is impaired, but not completely absent, the mutation is named according to the color affected: protanomaly, deuteranomaly or tritanomaly.

Dichromasia

assumes that the eye distinguishes two primary colors and does not perceive the third, replacing it with shades of the first two. Within the framework of dichromasy there are protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia.

A person with monochromasia

vision distinguishes only one of the primary colors. This mutation is often accompanied by photophobia and nystagmus.

Achromasia

(color blindness) is a rare phenomenon associated with the absence of the pigment responsible for color vision. The world in the eyes of a person with achromasia looks black and white with shades of gray and is completely devoid of other colors.

Sometimes nature compensates for the inability to see one color with a more subtle perception of another. For example, people with protania can see more shades of green than is possible with full trichromatic vision.

"Like a bull on a red rag"

Many people still believe that as soon as a bull sees something red, his eyes will immediately begin to fill with blood, he will begin to breathe heavily and scratch the ground with his hoof, and then, worst of all, a powerful beast will rush headlong towards the one who is killing him. annoys. There is even a saying: about someone who quickly becomes angry, they say that he reacts like a bull to a red rag. However, this is nothing more than a misunderstanding.

It doesn’t matter what color the rag is: if you move it and the bull notices it, then at first he will simply be wary, but if you start waving it in all directions, then expect trouble. This is a common defensive reaction. The animal perceives movement as a threat, and has no choice but to defend itself. By the way, if you wave a white cloth, the effect can be even more noticeable, since this color is brighter than red and the bull will see it faster.

Eyesore

Despite the fact that the eye of a cattle is protected by eyelids, eyelashes and the secretion of tear fluid, the animal can damage it by bumping into a branch or dry grass. Due to injury, a thin film forms on the conjunctiva, which prevents the light ray from entering the eye. The cause of the cataract may be helminths that have penetrated into the inner corner of the eye. Veterinarians diagnose thelaziosis. Parasites are able to move along the conjunctiva, damaging its integrity. The cornea begins to become cloudy, and the cow's vision decreases. If thelaziosis is not treated, the cow's eye may close, and the helminths will penetrate inside the eyeball, establishing colonies in it.

The conjunctiva turns red and a sore appears on it.
Tearfulness increases.
Photophobia appears.
The cow constantly shakes her head and expresses concern. Her appetite drops.

An eyesore due to thelaziosis can also appear in a calf. The disease is not contagious. Among the main reasons is poor livestock maintenance. There are a lot of flies in the barn that sit in the corner of the eye and lay larvae. In winter and especially in summer, it is necessary to clean out the dirt in the barn 2 times a day and treat the room from flies.

At the first signs of a change in the animal’s behavior, it is necessary to check its eyes: bend the lower eyelid, helminths are usually found there. What needs to be done?

Rinse eyes with 3% boric acid solution. Use a rubber bulb. The liquid with helminths is collected in a bath and destroyed. Instead of boric acid, you can use a 0.5% Lysol solution.
An ointment containing penicillin and sulfonamide drugs is applied under the eyelid.
Eye treatment is carried out once a day. Therapy continues until the helminths completely disappear from the eye.

This treatment is used for conjunctivitis, which is caused by a foreign object entering the eye. The thorn will not disappear on its own. This is a new growth. It is most often removed surgically. The operation is resorted to if the individual is of high value. Otherwise, the animal is culled. If treatment is started immediately after detection of the inflammatory process, then the appearance of a cataract can be prevented. The eye will remain healthy.

By examining the structure of the eye of cattle, we can refute the myth about bulls and red light. Color blindness is more common in humans and primates. There are isolated cases of vision pathology in farm animals, but this is not called the norm.

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Bibliography:

Animal husbandry - Wikipedia
Animal husbandry // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
Animal husbandry // Great Russian Encyclopedia: [in 35 volumes] / ch. ed. Yu. S. Osipov. — M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2004—2017.

What breeds are popular in Russia

The choice of varieties of cows that are bred in our country is due to their ease of care, adaptability to temperate and northern climates and high productivity.

The most popular breeds, their description and orientation are shown in the following table:

Breed name	Characteristic	Direction	Performance
Jersey	Compact, angular, with a flat body and prominent pelvic bones. The color is brown with white markings and a black mask on the eyes and nose.	Dairy	6500 liters of milk per year
Ayrshire	It is proportionally built, with horns curved upward, easily acclimatizes, and tolerates grazing well.	Dairy	7000 liters of milk per year. The weight of cows is 480 kilograms, bulls are 800 kilograms. Slaughter yield – 50 percent
Hereford	Wide body, rounded sides, soft short coat, red and white color	Meat	The weight of the bulls is 1000 kilograms, 70 percent of the carcass is subject to sale. Milk yield - 1200 liters per year.
Yaroslavskaya	Thin limbs, developed muscles, wide pelvis, black and white color. Consumes little feed, disease resistant	Dairy and meat	The weight of the bulls is 1200 kilograms. Yield after slaughter is 58 percent. Annual milk yield is 6000 liters.
Kholmogorskaya	Large, broad-chested, with crooked hind legs. Color black with white markings. They are well adapted to cold climates and do not tolerate heat well.	Meat and dairy	Cows produce 4000 liters per year. The weight of bulls is 1000 kilograms. Slaughter yield is 60 percent.

In Russia, dairy and mixed breeds are the most common. They maintain high productivity even with dietary deficiencies.

Meat breeds require large amounts of succulent food all year round. Diet deficiencies have a negative impact on weight gain.

Color doesn't matter

The color is what viewers pay more attention to than the bull. Firstly, richly embroidered costumes and red capes are considered an important part of the culture and tradition of bullfighting. Just as sports teams always wear the same colors, scarlet capes are seen as part of the bullfighting uniform, not because bulls don't like red. The reasons are also practical. Bullfighting is one of the most popular and controversial customs in Spain. Often this exciting action ends with the death of the bull, and the red color, although not much, masks the already cruel performance.

Freud's Dream Book

Sigmund Freud, explaining what the little red bull promises, suggests remembering exactly where you observed it:

in your own home - you are completely satisfied with your marital relationship;
in the middle of the city - you are lost in choosing between several fans;
on the farm - one of the friends may “move” into the category of “second half”;
on public transport - you change sexual partners like gloves.

Features of cattle vision

In order to find out what colors bulls perceive, it is necessary to know the features of the visual organs of these artiodactyls.

The structure of the eye of representatives of cattle is in many ways similar to that of humans. Consisting of the vitreous body, lens and membrane, it is connected to the brain via the optic nerve.

The eye shell is conventionally divided into three types:

External - includes the cornea and sclera. The sclera is attached to muscles that allow the eyeball to move in the orbit. The transparent cornea conducts light reflected from objects to the retina.
Middle - consists of the iris, ciliary body and choroid. The iris, like a lens, directs light from the cornea into the eye, regulating its flow. In addition, the color of the eyes depends on its pigment. The choroid contains blood vessels. The ciliary body ensures the activity of the lens and promotes optimal heat exchange in the eye.
The inner, or retina, transforms the reflection of light into a nerve signal going to the brain.

The light-sensitive cells that are responsible for color perception are located in the retina of the eye. They are rods and cones. Their number and location determines how well the animal sees during the day, how it navigates in the dark, and what colors it perceives. Scientists have found that bulls and cows can see in the green, blue, yellow, red, black and white spectrum, but the saturation of these colors is very low, and their shades in the perception of animals merge into a single tone.

However, this does not prevent these mammals from fully existing, since they do not rely on color to survive. Much more important for them is the ability of panoramic vision. Cows, unlike humans, due to their somewhat elongated pupils, can see 330° around them. In addition, they react faster to movement compared to humans.

As for the range at which bulls are able to see certain objects, it does not differ in length. These animals have a blind spot at a distance of up to 20 cm from the tip of the nose - they simply cannot see objects in this area. In addition, the clarity of distinguishing objects is lost beyond a radius of 2 - 3 m from them.

Another feature of these artiodactyls is night vision. With the onset of twilight, cows' vision sharpens hundreds of times, which allows them to notice in time hypothetical predators that hunt mainly at night. Moreover, in the dark, the eyes of cows and bulls tend to glow, like a cat’s, due to a special pigment that refracts light in a special way.

Causes and types

Due to color blindness, there is no redness of the eyes, itching or pain in them. A person may not notice such a deviation in color perception for many years.

The retina of the human eye contains special nerve cells responsible for color perception, which are commonly called cones.

Each cone contains a special pigment. It is the presence of this pigment in the cone that helps a person distinguish colors.

There are three types of cones: one type helps to see red, another helps to see green, and the third helps to see blue.

An ordinary person has all types of pigments, but colorblind people lack some of them. This is why colorblind people see some colors as very faded or completely gray.

Traditionally, color blindness is divided into hereditary (congenital) and acquired.

The hereditary form of color blindness is always linked to the X chromosome. Women are usually just carriers of the “broken” gene and do not have symptoms of color vision impairment.

But their children (most often male) develop color blindness, which makes it difficult to distinguish between red and green colors.

This is due to the characteristics of the male genome, and men suffer from color blindness 10-30 times more often than women. However, in some cases, color blindness cannot be called a disease.

It would be more accurate to consider it an insignificant feature of vision, because such people can distinguish more shades of other colors that are inaccessible to an ordinary person.

Acquired color blindness occurs as a result of any serious infectious or neurological disease that affects the optic nerves.

Usually in such people the disease constantly progresses, and over time they completely lose the ability to see yellow and blue.

Here are the main conditions leading to acquired color blindness:

age-related degenerative changes (most often cataracts and glaucoma), in which not only color perception deteriorates, but also vision itself;
taking certain groups of medications;
injuries affecting the optic nerves;
complicated influenza, meningitis, encephalitis.

Why is a bullfighter's cape always red?

The myth that red enrages bulls originated in bullfighting centuries ago.
Fierce confrontations between beast and man, combined with such a spectacular attribute, led many to believe that it was the bright color of the cloak that provoked the bull to attack. For a long time, people simply did not think about the true reasons for the animal’s behavior. In fact, the hood could have been any color - the bull would still charge at the bullfighter due to the movement. Why then is the cape always made red? Today this is partly a tribute to tradition, but once upon a time the choice fell on a rich crimson shade solely for practical reasons. Blood is less noticeable against a red background. A black one, on which all the spots are not so obvious, would have been suitable, but here the entertainment of the performance played a role. A bullfighter with a red cloak is more noticeable in the arena; the color adds drama and theatricality to what is happening. Red symbolizes the death of one of the participants in the battle. There was also a completely logical explanation for the bull’s anger. Animals of a special breed are selected for the performance. From birth they develop aggressive behavior. And to make the already not the friendliest animal even more irritable, it is not fed for some time before the fight. Hunger and the annoying waving of a rag in front of your nose - few people will like this, and an animal with a violent disposition will not restrain itself. The crimson color does not evoke any special emotions in bulls; it only emphasizes the general atmosphere of passion. Thus, the popular belief that bulls hate red turned out to be nothing more than a myth. The belief dates back to the Middle Ages, when bullfighting became a popular entertainment. Since then, science has advanced greatly and proven the theory to be untenable. Therefore, the phrase “like a red rag to a bull” is just a spectacular figure of speech that has nothing to do with the truth.

EGYPT

Among the Egyptians, the cow served as a prototype for the sky goddess Nut. According to their beliefs and convictions, Nut was the mistress not only of the sky that people see, but also of a larger sphere - the entire outer space. The ancient Egyptians turned all those things that they could not understand or explain into beautiful metaphors. Therefore, looking at the sky, their brains drew the image of the mistress of the cosmos - a beautiful celestial cow, who had several forms: a woman of amazing beauty, a roof, wings and even the ocean.

Moreover, all the images complemented each other and did not contradict. The Egyptians were inclined to deify everything that they could not understand, and the image invariably came out beautiful and animated. They believed that it was the heavenly cow who ensured that day followed night and vice versa. To do this, she either swallowed the stars and the Moon, or revived them, so she was considered the guardian of the peace of the dead. In Egyptian mythology there was more than one goddess in the form of a cow. One of the greatest goddesses of ancient times, Isis, was also identified with this animal. She became a model of ideal femininity and motherhood. Sometimes Isis was depicted wearing a headdress shaped like a solar disk and decorated with cow horns. This mother goddess had her own sacred animal. He was the mother of the bull Apis - the great white cow of Heliopolis. It is known that Apis had his own temple, which was located in Memphis.