tsetse flies & colors?

From my experiences dark green is nearly similar to dark blue. I noticed that several times during game drives where people with dark green fleeces were really pested by the flies while the people beneath them with more neutrale coloured clothes weren't much effected. Surprisingly most of these people in green were guides.

I had a gray sweatshirt I wore and was bothered a lot by tsetses but this could be completely coincidental. On another trip I wasn't bothered by them at all. For some reason the ones in Tarangire didn't seem to bite me but the ones out in the Western Corridor did. Go figure.

thank you both for your replies!

Here's what may be a silly question... are tsetse flies active both day and night? In other words, does the color thing matter as much if you're sitting around camp in the evening?

Good question - the anopheles mosquito is active at night, what about the tsetse fly. I seem to remember from my time in Uganda that they were active during the day.

and, so dark colors are bad - how about pastels? I will be in mostly neutrals and khaki, but I need a little color.

Tsetse flies are only active during daylight. And you very rarely encounter them in camp.

never been bothered by tsetses at night. pastels are fine but the tsetse traps in Zambia/Zimbabwe were more of a bright blue than a dark blue so i'd avoid any blue. i wore dark green and wasn't bothered by anything.

I totally recommend a bugshirt from www.bugshirt.com. The shirts keep you cool and tsetse-free. They gave me 100% protection in Meru, the Western Corridor of Serengeti and Ugalla. With that shirt on, you can wear all blue if you want.

With that shield on, you look like something from outer space! Is it hot in there?

The normal primary hosts of the tsetse are the dark colored Cape Buffalo & Wildebeest. Other grazing animals are also fair targets. So there are programed (by their genetic heritage and evolution) to target dark colors. Blue comes pretty close to these animal hides as far as their photoreceptors are concerned. However, other dark colors are also attractive. So, one bit of advice might be to look as little like a buffalo as possible