Ungulates suffer greatly from a variety of biting flies, the results of which decrease their feeding and resting time and force them to move to lower-quality habitats and unvegetated areas. This in turn leads to weight loss in adults, lower milk production in mothers, and growth retardation in young. An ungulate’s first line of defense against blood-sucking flies is its insect-repelling behaviors that include head waving, ear flapping, tail flicking, and foot stamping. Ungulates also can respond to a biting fly attack by gathering into larger groups to lessen the number of flies per individual (dilution effect) and by finding microhabitats with lower temperatures and stronger winds, where fewer biting flies are found. In this paper, I considered the insect-repelling behaviors of goitered gazelles to better understand the protection strategies of wild ungulates against fly attacks to enhance the management of domestic animals. I found that (a) goitered gazelles demonstrated the highest rate of insect-repelling behavior during the hot and windless summer months, which was the most favorable time of year for biting fly activity; (b) smaller body-sized fawns and sub-adults performed fly defensive behaviors significantly less often than adults, while there were no differences in repelling behavior rates between adult males and females in spite of the discrepancy in their body sizes; (c) goitered gazelles increased their group sizes through the summer months of high biting fly activity; and (d) during summer, the gazelles used landscape features to find elevated and unvegetated sites with lower temperatures and higher wind speeds to lower fly activity. Blood-sucking fly activity is very likely a powerful environmental factor under which ungulate hosts significantly modify their behaviors in order to escape the pain and harassment—and lessen the costs—from biting fly attacks.

中文翻译：

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瞪羚瞪羚中的驱虫行为：对咬蝇攻击的反应

g虫遭受各种叮咬的苍蝇之苦，其结果减少了它们的进食和休息时间，并迫使它们迁移到质量较低的栖息地和无植被的地区。反过来，这会导致成年人的体重减轻，母亲的牛奶产量降低以及年轻人的发育迟缓。有蹄类动物抵制吸血蝇的第一道防线是其驱虫行为，包括摇头，拍打耳朵，甩尾和踩踏脚。g的咬人还可以通过聚集成更大的群体以减少每个人的苍蝇数量（稀释效应），以及发现温度更低，风更强的微生境来应对咬人的苍蝇，在那里发现的叮咬苍蝇较少。在本文中，我考虑了鹅瞪羚的驱虫行为，以更好地了解野生有蹄类动物对苍蝇的保护策略，以加强家畜的管理。我发现（a）在炎热和无风的夏季月份，瞪羚瞪羚表现出最高的驱虫行为，这是一年中最有利于咬蝇活动的时间；（b）体型较小的小鹿和亚成年人进行防蝇行为的频率明显低于成年，而成年雄性和雌性尽管体型不同，但其排斥行为率没有差异；（c）在整个夏季，高飞的叮咬活动使长尾瞪羚的种群增加了；和（d）在夏季，瞪羚利用景观特征找到温度较低，风速较高的高架和无植被地点，以降低飞行活动。吸血的苍蝇活动很可能是一个有力的环境因素，在这种环境下，有蹄类动物宿主会显着改变其行为，从而摆脱咬人的苍蝇袭击带来的痛苦和骚扰，并降低成本。