大自然的神奇景觀真的多的數不勝數～但如此規律又統一的圓圈到現在都沒有科學的解釋，人們賦予這些圓圈的名字也充滿了幻想——「精靈圈」，這個名字起的真好，精靈在圓圈中跳舞，所以草才不會生長，這想法也太有意思了～
Legend says that they are footprints of the gods, others believe that they are UFO landing sights, and scientists have their own theories, but the truth is that no one really knows how the fairy circles dotting the Namib coastal desert came to be.
非洲納米比亞海岸沙漠地帶有許多「精靈圈」。有傳說它們是天使的腳印，也有人認為它們是不明飛行物落地的地點，科學家也有各自的理論。但至於這些「精靈圈」到底是如何形成的，目前還沒有人知道。
Fairy circles are uniformly distributed round gaps in arid grassland across the Namib which look like polka dots on fabric when seeing from the air. Until 2014, they were known to only occur along the Namib Desert in southern Africa, but then almost identical formations were discovered near the mining town of Newman in Western Australia.
這些「精靈圈」均勻地分布在納米比亞乾旱的草原地帶，從空中往下看去，它們就如毛衣上的圓點花紋一般。2014年，它們因只出現在南非的納米比亞沙漠而聞名，但隨後在澳大利亞西部的礦業城紐曼附近也發現了幾乎一樣的「精靈圈」。
Still, the fairy circles of Namibia remain the most famous and fascinating to the scientists who have studied them since the 1970’s. Theories about their formation and purpose abound, but so far no one has been able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that theirs is the true answer to this decades-old enigma.
但對很多從1970年代就開始研究它們的科學家來說，納米比亞的「精靈圈」仍是最有名也是最美的。關於它們的形成以及目的的相關理論比比皆是，但到目前為止，還沒有人能完全證明自己的理論是正確的。
「It’s a circular area that is bare, there’s nothing on it, and there’s this ring of grass around it,」 Eugene Marais, Research manager at the Gobabeb-Namib Research Institute, describes the average fairy circle. 「When you look at it from the air or from high points it almost looks like measles spots.」
「它們就是一個個光禿禿的圓形區域，上面什麼都沒有長，周圍長著一圈草，」戈巴布納米比亞研究所的研究經理尤金·馬拉斯（Eugene Marais）這樣描述「精靈圈」。「當你從空中或高處看時，它們就像麻疹斑。」
Scientists have been trying to explain the reason why these barren circles exist for decades, and even though science has come so far since the 70’s, we’re still having problems understanding this mysterious natural phenomenon. As Prof. Marais says, 「we are sitting with something that should be so easy to explain, and yet finding an acceptable explanation where you can show what is causing it is proving surprisingly difficult」.
科學家們一直以來都試圖解釋這些存在了幾十年的什麼東西都不長的圓圈，儘管從70年代到如今，科學已經如此發達，我們對這一神秘的大自然現象仍充滿著迷惑。就像
馬拉斯教授所說的那樣，「我們坐在一起討論一件看起來似乎很容易解釋的事情，但沒想到給這一現象的產生一個合理的解釋竟然如此困難。」
Apart from the mystical and sci-fi explanations like fairies dancing in the circles and preventing vegetation from growing, or UFOs landing in the desert at night, there are several plausible explanations of why the fairy circles exist.
針對「精靈圈」形成的原因，除了「因為精靈在圓圈裡跳舞，所以才不會有雜草生長」這樣神秘的解釋，以及「不明飛行物晚上要在這些圓圈內落地」這樣科幻的解釋之外，還有幾個比較合理的解釋。
Some scientists are convinced it has something to do with the termites that make the Namib their home, and research has shown that there are termite colonies under most of these barren circles bordered by vegetation. The theory goes that termite colonies invade and conquer each other, but when similarly-sized colonies meet, they can’t annihilate each-other, so they create these buffer 「no termite’s land」 between them.
一些科學家認為這一現象與生活在納米比亞的白蟻有關。研究表明，在這些被植被包圍的什麼都不生長的圓圈地下，大部分都存在白蟻的聚居地。該理論認為，白蟻群落會互相入侵和徵服，但當同樣大小的蟻群相遇時，它們就不能相互消滅，所以它們在彼此之間創造了緩衝區「沒有白蟻的土地」，也就是圓圈以外的地方。
Another plausible theory is that the fairy circles are the result of plants』 competition for the scarce water that falls in the Namib every year. Plants help their nearest neighbors by creating shade and maintaining water on the soil’s surface, but hinder the growth of other further away by growing long roots and extracting water from the soil.
另一個可信的理論認為，「精靈圈」是納米比亞沙漠植物爭奪稀有水資源的結果。植物通過在土壤表面創造蔭涼和保持水分來幫助它們的近鄰，但是它們地下長長的根又會吸取土壤中的水分阻礙其他其他植物的生長。
There are also those who believe that the Namib’s fairy circles are somehow connected to the toxic Euphorbia bushes that grow in the Namib, as some remnants of these plants have been found in fairy circles. But the truth is that no one has known for sure if any of these theories is the right one, or if the answer is actually a combination of theories.
也有人認為納米比亞的「精靈圈」與生長在這裡的有毒大戟叢有某種聯繫，因為在他們在這些「精靈圈」中發現了這些有毒植物的一些殘餘物。不過事實是，沒有人確切知道這些理論中是否有一個是正確的，又或者這些理論的互相結合才是正確的。
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