ScienceAugust 30, 2026
tabanid
TAB-uh-nid
Definition
Belonging to the family Tabanidae, which includes horseflies and deer flies known for their painful bites.
Etymology
Derived from the Latin 'tabanus', meaning a gadfly or horsefly, which was used in scientific taxonomy to classify these biting insects.
In the news
The article uses the term to identify the specific type of blood-feeding flies that researchers observed struggling to land on zebra-patterned surfaces.
Scientists once thought zebra stripes might help confuse predators, but when researchers dressed horses in zebra-striped coats, biting flies repeatedly failed to land — adding to evidence that the famous pattern evolved to thwart insects, not lions
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com