Africa’s Mysterious 'Fairy Circles' Explained
Fairy circles—circular patches of bare soil surrounded by a ring of grass—have long mystified scientists.
Found mainly in the grasslands of southern Africa, the oddly shaped formations can grow to more than 65 feet (20 meters) wide, but no one knew what caused them. Now, perhaps dashing the hopes of those who thought actual fairies were involved, a new study has found a possible explanation: termites. (See videos of ants and termites.)
It seems the culprit—or landscape artist if you prefer—is a particular species of sand termite, Psammotermes allocerus, that was found at all of the hundreds of sites studied along a 1,240-mile-long (2,000-kilometer-long) belt of desert from central Angola to northern South Africa.
It works like this: Termites munch away at grass roots, making the soil less dense and more
