The Earth Story

A Pufferfish's Garden

For years divers off the coast of Japan encountered these enormous, 2 metre diameter 'mystery circles' on the sandy sea floor. A few years ago we found out who was making them.

This huge underwater crop-circle is the mating display of the male Torquigener pufferfish. The small (12 cm) fish takes 7-9 days to meticulously prepare one of these elaborate gardens. It seems that the sole purpose of the garden is to attract a mate, and provide a good site to lay her eggs.

If their garden catches a mate's eye, the male will hang around for another 6 days to care for the eggs, before moving on to a new location, and starting a new garden.

This small pufferfish produces one of the most elaborate displays known in nature.

Image Credit: http://goo.gl/PCahFI

Original Article: http://goo.gl/Nh85tD

A Video (Attenborough!): http://goo.gl/9TmPI4

Leave the ravages of northern hemisphere almost winter and head with this videographer to the green foliage of Kauai

The Sunken Garden

The city of Mount Gambier in South Australia is located on the slopes of a volcano comprising several craters. Volcanic craters, however, are not the only ones found in this area. A number of sinkholes can be seen throughout town created by collapsing limestone caves. Weakly acidic groundwater moving down joints and along cracks and bedding planes slowly dissolved the limestone and created a series of caves. Eventually, the roofs of these caves collapsed and created sinkholes.

The Umpherston Sinkhole, in particular, was transformed into a beautiful garden about 130 years ago by James Umpherston. When he purchased a farm property and found the collapsed cave he decided to create a relaxing spot for the people of Mount Gambier. The garden became an immediate success and even contained a small lake. After the death of James Umpherston, the garden fell into despair but was rebuilt about 40 years ago.

The Sunken Garden, as it is called, is made up of several terraces planted with tree ferns and hydrangeas. The walls of the sinkhole are garnished with hanging ivy. At night, the floodlit garden becomes a popular gathering point for possums.

Xandi

Image Credits: http://bit.ly/2y7t3r3 http://bit.ly/2xqGV2b Sources: http://bit.ly/2ygNJ0n http://bit.ly/2y6VVzx http://bit.ly/2y7hHTG

Wow. Apparently this garden in Dubai is the world’s largest flower garden and it holds 45 million flowers