Does the Color Red Irritate a Bull?
Does the Color Red Irritate a Bull? Most bullfight fans like to believe that anything red makes a bull angry, and that the bullfighter provokes the bull into attacking by waving a bright red cape. The truth is that the bull probably would charge the taunting cape no matter what its color.
Like many animals, including horses, cats and dogs, the bull is colorblind! It sees the world in shades of white, gray, and black – much like those you see when you watch a color television program on an ordinary black-and-white screen.
The cape of the bullfighter, or torero, is red or bright pink to give color to the spectacle. Bullfighters, known as matadors, use a small red cape, called a muleta, during a bullfight. It appears that bulls get irritated by the cape’s movement, not its color.
They’ll charge whichever object is moving the most, which means this old myth can get tossed right out of the ring.