Fairy rings – enigmatic features of Namibia

FOR close to 30 years since a study on them began in earnest, the enigmatic fairy circles or rings of Namibia are still just that – enigmatic.

The circles look like nothing out of the ordinary – just some round bare space in the middle of some dry area or grassland, often in the desert or even on a dune or just somewhere in the wild but to date, the reason behind their occurrence is still one of nature’s most guarded secrets.The circles, which are also found in Idaho, USA, are barren land with no vegetation but with their perimeters more often than not marked by some taller grass such as Stipagrostis giessii around them while between them is another other type of grass, Stipagrostis uniplumis commonly found in the Namib Desert. These circles are more prolific in Namibia but they are also found in southern Angola and northern part of South Africa. The secret to their occurrence has brought back renowned plant scientist Professor Eugene Moll to southern Namibia.During a talk organised by the Botanical Society of Namibia last week Monday, Moll described the rings as sometimes concave bare circles or ellipses generally occurring in a monospecific grassland matrix only on sandy, calcrete and pebbly ground. ‘They can be small (2-4 metres in the south and west) or usually much bigger (up to 10 by 15 metres in the north),’ he explained.While their causes are just as intriguing, Moll said that though to date the causes of the rings are not known, there are many theories about their origins. ‘Some of the fancy theories are such as that they are made by fairies, dragons and extra-terrestrials while the more scientific theories include underlying geological faults, plants or animals remains such as euphorbia damarana, fossorial animals, termites and seed-harvesting ants among others. They are also said to be geochemical in origin,’ he explained. Among the Ovahimba people, some of the oral myths include gods, spirits and natural divinities as causes of the rings.In his earlier research, which is also quoted by other scientists, Moll said that termites were the main agents in the ring formation and that the lack of vegetation in the rings was compatible with surface foraging by the termites. In support of this theory, he found termite casts and a few individual termites after digging a trench of 0,75m deep and 0,30m wide through a number of the rings. The termites were identified as Baucaliotermes hainsei (Fuller) and Psammotermes allocerus (Silverstri). His research showed that there were rings in different stages of colonisation by plants, thereby concluding that the rings were dynamic and a continuous development, something several other scientists in Namibia and Southern Africa concurred with.Moll’s current research findings so far combines a number of past discoveries. ‘Our recent research using ground penetrating radar, shows a ‘curtain’ below the rim extending to as deep as 10 metres,’ Moll explained. ‘This is present in all kinds of fairy rings with live grass roots at 1,2 metres and more, suggesting a biologically active lens underlain by a more moist deeper soil layer,’ he added.

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