Do bulls get angry at the color red?
No — the evidence does not support this claim.
Bulls charge because they are angered by the color red.
What the evidence shows
Bulls are red-green colorblind, so the color of a matador's cape is not what provokes them. Cattle are dichromats and cannot single out red the way people do. What triggers a charge is the movement of the cape, not its hue — tests with stationary flags of different colors showed bulls charging all of them regardless of color. The cape is red mainly to mask bloodstains for the human audience.
This summary describes a fact-check originally published by Live Science. FactGuard did not conduct this review; we summarize it and link to the original. Read the original fact-check by Live Science →
Sources
- Live Science
- MythBusters bull-vision experiments (2007)
Published 2026-06-07 · Last reviewed 2026-06-07
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