For a time immemorial strange formations have appeared in the African plains. No one knew where they came from. They seemed not to be there one day, and the next they dotted the plain as far as the eye could see.
Their name 'fairy circles' tells volumes on how the locals regarded the strange phenomenon.
Scientists have finally unlocked the secret, by monitoring the nightly activities of termites.
A particular type of termite, Psammotermes allocerus, lives beneath the sandy soil below where the large bare patches of grasslands appear. Another interesting observation scientists made, was that the termites exhibit such behaviour not just as foraging pests, but to obtain water, which would otherwise be absorbed by the plant, by creating the bare patches, through which the water seeps onto the lower ground they inhabit.
But the cleared circles are also the termite's enemy, and the friend of the local fauna, who are alerted to the termites' whereabouts by the appearance of the circles.
The flat bare patches become little oasis in the desert, when the terrain becomes barren.
Fairy circles appear in a wide swath of the African continent, from the Namibian desert through Angola all the way to South Africa.
Source: Bloomberg 3.29.13
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