They look like dusty statues, but the photographs of animals mostly birds taken by photographer Nick Brandt were once vibrant, living creatures.
Their fatal mistake? Taking a dip in Lake Natron.
Lake Natron, located in Tanzania, on the Kenyan border has a concentration of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, in addition to magnesite deposits, that result in this deadly phenomenon. According to New Scientist, these compounds are present in the lake due to a nearby volcano dumping ash.
I unexpectedly found the creatures all manner of birds and bats washed up along the shoreline of Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania. No one knows for certain exactly how they die, but it appears that the extreme reflective nature of the lakes surface confuses them, and like birds crashing into plate glass windows, they crash into the lake, Brandt wrote in his photo book Across the Ravaged Land, according to Discover Magazine.
The outlet New Scientist clarifies that the statuesque animals were positioned for the photographs by Brandt, but that doesnt make the state of the animals any less incredible
The water has an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved, as they dry, he continued.