How do pufferfish make those underwater sand artworks?
Pufferfish's Sand Mandala
How do pufferfish make those underwater sand artworks?
Deep on the ocean floor, off the coast of Japan, something impossible appears overnight. A huge, perfect circle is carved into the sand — nearly two meters wide, with ridges radiating out like the petals of a flower. For years, divers found these mysterious patterns and had no idea what made them. No human artist. No machine. The ocean's greatest mystery sculpture.
The artist, it turns out, is a fish the size of your hand. A male white-spotted pufferfish — just twelve centimeters long — spends seven to nine days building this enormous structure. He works alone, in waters twenty meters deep, using the only tool he has: his body.
