Mimicry in nature is an evolutionary strategy in which an organism has developed, in part, for instance the visual appearance of a more harmful species to deter predation. As a deterrence method to prevent livestock predation, such mimicry can be applied artificially through paint or other means. In a study from Botswana (Radford et al. 2020) artificial eyespots were painted on the hindquarters of cattle to deter large carnivore attacks. The study observed lower levels of predation among cattle that had painted eyespots in comparison to untreated controls (RR = 0.00). The risk of predation was also slightly lower among animals with a painted cross on their hindquarters in comparison to the untreated controls (RR = 0.41).
