Have you ever glanced out your vehicle window and noticed that, at certain speeds, it looks like the wheels on the other cars and trucks are actually rolling backwards? Or have you looked at an old-timey barber shop poles only to see the stripes going the wrong way? These optical illusions have been confusing people for years.

Well, it turns out evolution might have taken advantage of that striped madness when it came to zebras. Australian and British researchers said those stripes seem to not only help keep flies away, but also confuse lions and other predators with their distracting illusions.

It’s a twirling, distracting, jumbling mess of moving stripes that the African cats see when they’re zooming in on a thundering herd of frightened zebras, said Martin J. How, PhD, of the University of Queensland’s Queensland Brain Institute, in St. Lucia, Australia. And it could be enough to make even these master hunters miss their mark.

“I’m not sure you could go as far as calling it motion sickness,” How said, “but it could certainly buy the zebra a few vital seconds in the heat of the hunt