The caustic lake has another strange quality: it appears to turn animals to stone. The lake is within the Lake Natron Basin, a Ramsar Site wetland of international significance.ĭoes natron lake turn animals into stone?īright-red Lake Natron in Tanzania may not look inviting enough to take a dip – and that’s a good thing: its water is extremely alkaline. It is in the Gregory Rift, which is the eastern branch of the East African Rift. Lake Natron is a salt or alkaline lake located in north Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region in Tanzania. Unlike those other lakes, though, Lake Natron is extremely alkaline, due to high amounts of the chemical natron (a mix of sodium carbonate and baking soda) in the water. The ghastly Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania, is a salt lake-meaning that water flows in, but doesn’t flow out, so it can only escape by evaporation.

The lake’s hypersaline water can strip away human skin, and breeds algae toxic to many forms of animal life, but the bird flourishes in these conditions thanks to its incredibly adapted body. Visit Lake Natron in Tanzania and you’ll find 75% of the world’s 3.2 million lesser flamingos. Because Lake Natron is brimming with alkaline water, it offers the perfect environment for this bacteria to thrive. Lesser flamingos primarily feed on a cyanobacteria known as spirulina (Arthrospira fusiformis), which grows in bodies of water with high alkalinity levels.

Lake natron calcified animals