Imagine finding art at the bottom of the ocean. For a long time, since 1995, actually,

Japanese divers off the coast of Amamioshima Island have reported seeing these weird designs

popping up in the sand. Areas that were barren when they had visited just weeks previously suddenly had these mathematically

perfect, intricate, large geometric patterns, like crop circles, but in the sand.

The centers of these circles that were popping up, they were built using this fine, soft white sand.

They were clean.

There were no shells, no seaweed.

It was pristine.

And then that central sand, that clean sand, rose out into a different pattern, made with

rougher, more dense sand, and decorated with these beautiful shells collected from all

around.

The entirety of these designs, they were covered in stripes, emanating from the center like rays of light.

If you're having trouble visualizing it, just imagine a perfect circle, with a rough patterned outer layer,

descending down into this smooth inner layer, almost like a sunflower. It was complicated. A human

would need to have some kind of sand filter to organize it, and they would need measuring devices

to create the symmetry and intricacy. Nobody could really do this freehand.

It was probably spooky for the divers to find. I'd imagine it was surprising and unsettling

to find temporary sand art at the bottom of the ocean. It was mysterious. In 2014, the mystery was solved with the discovery of the artist.

An unlikely candidate, not an alien putting down some weird underwater crop circles, not a Banksy, putting art where we least expect it.

No, it was a pufferfish. The amami, hoshizora, pufferfish.

Torquigener, albomaculosus. As is so often the case, in biology and in life, it was with the solving of this mystery, of who did it, that new mysteries arose.

How?

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