Magnetic Termite Mounds

In Australia's Northern Territory, inside the protected Litchfield National Park, near the township of Batchelor, about 100 kilometers southwest of Darwin, termites build peculiar mounds that are mysteriously aligned to the earth’s magnetic field. Wide swathe of empty ground are filled with hundreds of termite mounds that look like tombstones from a distance, but much larger. The magnetic termite mounds rise to as much as three meters in height, look relatively flat and they all face the same direction with their thinner edges facing the north and south like the needle of a compass.