"Fairy circles," the distinctive bald spots dotting the Namibian grasslands, were once mysterious not only for their striking patterns, but their exclusivity: no other landscape in the world seemed to have the same six-sided honeycombs.
But more than 6,200 miles away, a new discovery in the Australian outback has helped researchers crack the code, supporting the theory that sparse grasses actually organize themselves into the unusual structures to deal with their dry environment.
Either that, or signalling by hyper-intelligent reptilians to their Von Neuman probe progenitors.