10 times ponds were surprisingly strange
Ponds are sometimes beautiful, but nothing to write home about. But some pools are downright strange. From haunted ponds to a shark-infested Australian golf course, here are ten puddles that refuse to be normal.
Related: 10 reasons to stay away from large bodies of water
10 Ghost ponds with zombie plants
Ghost ponds are not undead pools that haunt the night. Instead, the term refers to ponds that are buried, usually under agricultural land. They have never been completely drained and although most of the water may have disappeared, the original vegetation remains.
A team from University College London estimated that there are around 600,000 ponds hidden beneath the English countryside. In 2017, they excavated three ponds and revived the seeds of eight species of aquatic plants. Incredibly, some of the seeds they found had been dormant for 150 years.
To take it a step further, the researchers spent six months and successfully turned a ghost pond back into a real pond, blooming with many plant species. Not only did the research prove that lost ponds can be restored, but they also offer the tantalizing opportunity to discover rare or extinct plants – and, in true zombie fashion, bring them back to life.[1]
9 A turtle money box
A green sea turtle named Omsin had a pretty amazing life. For years she paddled around a pond in Thailand, a habitat full of dreams. Literal. People visited the pond and threw coins into the water to make a wish. This tradition probably prompted the turtle’s keepers to name her ‘Omsin’, which means ‘piggy bank’ in Thai.
The whole thing was adorable. But unbeknownst to everyone, it became a disaster that grew worse every day, because Omsin, true to her name, started eating the coins. By the time vets noticed something was wrong, her situation was dire. The turtle had swallowed so many coins that their combined weight hindered her swimming and her shell cracked.
The endangered animal was wheeled into emergency surgery. During the operation, the extent of her dangerous habit was discovered: Omsin had consumed more than 900 coins. Luckily, vets were able to remove the small fortune from her stomach. Sadly, Omsin died after a second operation to repair damaged intenstines.[2]
8 Alien dots
In 2013, during early spring, cold weather caused a snowstorm in the small town of Eden, New York. Several ponds in the area froze over. One morning a resident noticed that one of these ponds looked strange. It almost looked like someone had taken a giant cookie cutter and cut out round shapes from the white surface.
None of the locals could remember seeing anything like this before, and strange explanations soon started popping up on social media. The best ones (in terms of entertainment) suggested that aliens, fish flatulence, or wandering elephants caused the dot pattern.
The real cause is probably a natural phenomenon. Some frozen ponds receive water from warm springs. When the warmer water rises to the surface, the ice can melt in certain places on the pond surface. Another plausible theory suggests that rotting plants at the bottom of the pond produced gases that rose to the surface and caused the dot pattern.[3]
7 Adapted frog ponds
Not every pond was created by geological forces or people. The largest frog in the world also likes to dig out a swimming pool for the whole family. The body of a Goliath frog can measure 13.38 inches (34 cm) and weigh 7.27 pounds (3.3 kg). In recent years, researchers have documented for the first time how these frogs move rocks almost as heavy as they are to build ponds for their young.
The small ponds, the first example of nest building in amphibians from Africa, are dug next to fast-flowing rivers. The pools provide the frog eggs (sometimes as many as 3,000) and tadpoles with a safe haven from predators and flowing water.
Goliath frogs are loving parents in another way too; they will guard the nest all night. It is not clear which parent does what, but if local hunters are to be believed, the male builds the pond and the female guards the nursery. Whatever the case, scientists believe that the hard labor involved in their reproductive cycle could ultimately explain why these frogs evolved to such extraordinary sizes.[4]
6 Alligator popsicles
In 2018, George Howard was the manager of Swamp Park in North Carolina, an area with an alligator sanctuary. One cold morning he was visiting a frozen pool with at least eighteen alligators when he noticed something strange. Several dark stumps poked through the ice.
Howard first mistook the stumps for trees, but then the horror of realization hit him. The dark bumps had teeth. He looked at the snouts of alligators. Believing that all his alligators had died, frozen, during the night, the park manager turned to Google to find out what happened.
It turns out no one died. His research showed that the alligators used a bizarre survival strategy. Once they anticipate freezing weather, the reptiles hold their nostrils above water, purposefully freezing their jaws in place. They may not be able to move, but at least they can breathe until the ice melts again.
The alternative is fatal. It has been documented that some alligators tried this strategy too late when their pond was already frozen. Because they could not break through the ice, they drowned.[5]
5 A coffin with remains
In 2019, a construction company was commissioned to renovate a pond. They arrived at the golf course where the pond was located in Tetney, England, and got to work. They never expected to pull a coffin out of the mud, but they did. This was not a case of a funeral home secretly dumping a casket on the golf course. Instead, the golf course was built on an ancient site and the pond happened to contain a rare, 4,000-year-old burial.
The coffin was huge and heavy. The interior was made from a hollowed-out oak tree trunk and contained human remains, an incredibly well-preserved ax and a planting bed. It’s difficult to gather information about someone who died so long ago, but the funeral offered a few clues.
The individual was buried under a gravel mound, a burial practice reserved for the important members of Bronze Age society. The ax also suggested that the deceased belonged to the elite. The plant bed, which consisted of moss, hazelnuts, juniper and leaf buds, died sometime in late spring.[6]
4 The brain blob
A few years ago, Stanley Park in British Columbia, Canada, hosted a BioBlitz. This is a fun event that gives scientists and amateur nature lovers 24 hours to walk through the park and catalog as many species as possible. While blowing around a pond, someone noticed something strange in the water.
It looked like a brain. Or, as some have described it, a “giant peeled lychee.” The lumpy thing was also dishwater brown and wobbly. Luckily for everyone involved, it wasn’t a real brain, but a rarely seen animal colony. Called a bryozoan, it begins as a single invertebrate creature that reproduces on its own, eventually forming a community of thousands of organisms held together by a gummy protein.
After this discovery, more ‘brain spots’ were discovered in the pond over time. This in itself was unusual because they are difficult to find and have never been discovered outside the warm eastern region of the Mississippi River. But since the pond is full of algae and plankton (the blobs’ favorite snacks) and the park is heating up due to global warming, researchers aren’t all that surprised.[7]
3 A forest
You might think that a forest can’t fit in a pond, let alone hide so much that no one notices. But that’s exactly what happened in 2007 in Arnhem, Michigan. The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) needed fill for a highway construction project and to obtain the material, they decided to dredge a pond on a nearby farm.
The diggers were 4.5 meters away when they encountered the first tree. Before long they were removing more trees than mud. Experts who visited the site had never seen so many millennia-old trees together. They noticed that clumps of tangled trees, sometimes as many as a dozen at a time, were brought to the surface. Some tree trunks were 20 feet long and 2 feet thick.
The unusual sight begged the question. What has buried this forest so deeply? Whatever happened, it was a single and violent catastrophe. The main suspect is the last glacier that passed through the region 10,000 years ago. It had collected the trees elsewhere and transported them to modern-day Arnheim, or mowed an entire local forest.[8]
2 A swimming pool with syrupy water
As different as ponds can be, their water consistency is about the same as water from the tap. But one pool does its own thing. In 1961, a scientific expedition to Antarctica found a shallow pond with water so salty that it looked more like thin syrup than H.20.
The Don Juan Pond, as it became known, is a mystery. Scientists know some amazing facts, such as the pond’s ability to remain liquid at -50°C because almost half its weight is pure salt. However, other questions remain. No one can agree on the source of the pond. It is also unknown where the salt comes from or why the pond is so chemically pure.[9]
1 The sharks of the golf course
In the 1990s, it wasn’t a good idea to fish for your lost golf ball in the ponds at Carbrook Golf Club. Located southeast of Brisbane, Australia, the pruned landscape did not contain any graceful koi fish in the ponds. No. One water feature had sharks.
No one knows how they got there. But the bull sharks, known for their ability to leave the salty ocean and thrive in freshwater rivers, likely washed onto the course during heavy flooding that broke the banks of nearby rivers and inundated the golf course.
The artificial pond was 700 meters long and had a depth of 380 meters. For twenty years the sharks called the golf course their home and reached sizes up to 3 meters in length. They even became the club’s mascots.
Then they disappeared. Another flood in 2013 may have allowed some sharks to flee back into the rivers, but since the last sharks were seen in 2015, it is possible that the remaining sharks simply died and sank to the bottom.[10]