Amazing Sand Patterns by Crabs

Today just a quick post about something truly amazing - sand art by crabs! You've all seen it at the beach, those little balls of sand, scattered randomly around crab holes. Turns out that they often form beautiful images, by chance one wonders?

The sand bubbler crabs actually sift the sand, still wet from the receding tide, to look for nutrients and anything edible. The already sifted sand is rolled into little balls or bubbles so that they don't look through it again. Pretty smart!

Which proves that it pays to not always have our noses up in the sky but to check what's happening on the ground too.

The first picture was taken by a friend of mine at Ganapatipule beach in Maharashtra, India, and the second one at a beach in Bintan, Indonesia, by flickr user modery.

Let me know if you have seen a similar compilation of crab sand art anywhere on the Net - I know there are artists inspired by it but I haven't seen an article about it. In fact, it did require some research to find the information why these crabs roll the sand balls. Here's the full article with more pictures.

Thanks and enjoy!