Desert “fairy circles” explained by Indigenous Australians as termites responsible for barren forms

A centuries-old mystery found in deserts around the world has finally been solved after researchers finally reached out to the Indigenous Australians who have lived among them for thousands of years.

The large circles of solid earth found in Australia’s deserts and parts of Africa, colloquially known as “fairy circles,” are actually formed by termites that live below the surface.

Spinifex termites have been documented for generations in paintings and stories by Aboriginal people in the area who observed them vacating their nests after heavy rains.

Scientists originally concluded that the evenly spaced, sparse circles of dirt were caused by plants competing for water beneath the soil.

Researchers working with the elders dug through the ground beneath the rock-solid surface at several locations including Nyiyaparli country, east of Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and Warlpiri country in the Northern Territory to confirm the information.

Mysterious “fairy circles” were a mystery for centuries until Indigenous Australian researchers recently pointed to the answers

A team (pictured) discovered that the hardened dirt on these circles was caused by subsurface termites, not plants competing for water

The circles where the termites live are called “linyji” in indigenous cultures, who used the hardened dirt and insects below for food and meal preparation.

“We gathered and ate the Warturnuma [flying termites] who flew from Linyji,” said Martu Elder Gladys Bidu.

“I learned that from my old people and I’ve seen it many times myself.”

The project’s lead researcher, ethnoecologist Fiona Walsh, said that exploring the central Australian country was part of her life’s work.

“I’ve lived here for 30 years now and we first heard about the circles in the 80s,” Ms Walsh told Daily Mail Australia.

“My first experiences with their hard spots were people using them for and other purposes in their daily lives.”

Ms Walsh’s interest in the fairy circles was renewed in 2016 when she compared aerial photographs of the circles to Aboriginal art and found they were almost exactly the same.

“Native people told us that these regular circular patterns of bare sidewalks are occupied by spinifex termites,” Ms Walsh previously said.

“The pavement surface is concrete hard – after we dug the trenches and then dusted them to clean the trenches, 100 percent of them had termite chambers visible horizontally and vertically in the matrix.”

Although the mysterious circles were first noticed in Africa in the 1970s, Ms. Bidu said her people have been using them for generations to break open seeds for use in food.

Ethnoecologist Fiona Walsh (pictured) led the team after spending 30 years in central Australia, turning her previous question for conclusions into causation

Ms Walsh said she has seen Aboriginal people use the “hard as concrete” surface of these circles in a variety of ways

After heavy rain, Linyji would hold pools of water and attract Mulyamiji, a desert skink, who would use the reserves to breed, forcing the termites to flee.

A story by Lee Nangala and Alice Nampijinpa about termites was used in research to prove that plants were not behind the mystery.

Mr. Nangala was a child when Pamapardu, flying termites, swarmed outside the ranger’s house where he and Ms. Nampijinpa slept.

“Ngapa (rain) falls, it rains every day,” said Mr. Nangala.

“Flying termites come out of the ground and out of termite patches,” Ms. Nampijinpa said.

Shared knowledge is driving new discoveries in research, Ms Walsh told Daily Mail Australia, and would further fuel her own research.

“We will continue to learn from the Aborigines and their basic knowledge comes from the elders,” she said.

After excavating several fairy circles at sites in WA and NT, Ms Walsh said 100 percent of them contained spinifex termites

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk