“On the eastern edge of the Namib Desert, millions of ochre-coloured bare patches in the grass have created landscapes of unique beauty that are often regarded as one of the greatest mysteries in ecology,” writes Norbert Jürgens, head of the Biodiversity Working Group in the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg, in a recent book entitled Fairy Circles of the Namib Desert. Sometimes, tall grasses grow on the perimeter of these barren patches – forming what are known as “fairy rings”.
Until the 1970s, nobody gave the fairy circles, which range from 3m to 20m in diameter, much thought. The local Himba people
