From the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders come these
mysterious patterns on the ocean floor off the southern coast of
Japan. Japanese scuba diver and photographer Yoji Ookata, who has spent
the last 50 years exploring and documenting his underwater discoveries
off the coast of Japan, spotted these beautiful and puzzling patterns in the
sand, nearly six feet in diameter and 80 feet below sea level, during a dive
near Amami Oshima at the southern tip of the country.
So what happened next? Are these rippling geometric patterns the
equivalent of crop circles on the seafloor? Not quite, but the answer is still
a good one. Colossal explains:
“He soon returned with colleagues and a television crew
from the nature program NHK to document the origins what
he dubbed the “mystery circle.”
Using underwater cameras the team discovered the artist is
a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims
tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast
organic sculptures using the gesture of a single fin. Through
careful observation the team found the circles serve a
variety of crucial ecological functions, the most important of
which is to attract mates. Apparently the female fish are
attracted to the hills and valleys within the sand and
traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the
pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves
later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect
the delicate offspring. Scientists also learned that the more
ridges contained within the sculpture resulted in a much
greater likelihood of the fish pairing. To learn more about
the circles check out the full scoop over on Spoon and
Tamago, and you can see two high resolution desktop
photos courtesy of NHK here.”
Busy little pufferfish boys wooing potential mates by sculpting the sand
with their bodies. As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty awesome!
[via Colossal]
(via fuckyeahmath)
5 months ago