A group of Zebras huddled together on the Serengeti Plain, sharing each other’s swishing tails to keep the flies at bay. Seeing between the lines, it is dizzily difficult to distinguish one individual from the other.
Apparently the swishing tails are not the zebra’s only fly defense. According to the the National Geographic, the zebra’s stripes confuse not just us but the biting flies as well.
We found again and again and again [that] the only factor which is highly associated with striping is to ban biting flies.
___Tim Caro,a biologist at the University of California, Davis
So there you have it, in black and white.