A UK-based landscape photographer recently traveled to a moor in Western Scotland to take pictures of a beautiful, solitary tree standing in the middle of the icy wasteland.

Melvin Nicholson

While he was there he encountered something even more spectacular than the tree – a mysterious white rainbow that looked like something right out of a frozen fairy tale.

“I had never seen anything like it in my 10 years capturing landscape photos around the globe or even in my 44 years of life,” Melvin Nicholson told ABC News.

Nicholson remembered it being “incredibly misty” as he and a friend hiked up toward the tree, and just as they arrived “the sun started to rise behind us, burning off the mist, and at that point, the fogbow appeared.”

Within 5 minutes the colorless rainbow disappeared.

“I knew I had captured something fairly special when I realized how transient it was,” he said.

According to NASA, the white rainbow is called a “fogbow” – a reflection of sunlight by water drops similar to a rainbow but without the colors.

The lack of colors is caused because water droplets of fog are much smaller than those of rain.

They are so tiny that “the quantum mechanical wavelength of light smears out colors” that would be created by larger water droplets, which act like small prisms, NASA says.

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When an Australian botanist saw a rainbow eucalyptus tree for the first time, he thought someone had painted the bark … but he soon discovered it was Mother Nature.

Rainbow eucalyptus planted in Hawaii. Credit: Gerold Grotelueschen/Alamy
Native to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines, the rainbow eucalyptus is one of only 4 eucalyptus species (out of 700 total) not found in Australia.

The tree prefers the wetter, warmer climate of South-East Asian rainforests.

“You could easily compare the colors to what you’d see in your average four-pack of assorted highlighters,” Australian Geographic reports.

Rainbow eucalyptus in Thailand. Credit: Siegfried Grassegger/Alarmy

As the tree sheds its bark, it exposes different colors over time.

When a piece of bark is peeled or falls off, the section of trunk underneath is “bright green when first exposed, and then turns to red, orange and purple tones and then back to brown as the bark matures,” explains Brett Summerell, chief botanist at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

“This process isn’t unusual– the forest red gum, spotted gum and others do it too – it’s just that the color changes are way outside the norm seen for eucalyptus.”


Brett and his team have successfully planted a rainbow eucalyptus in Australia, but he says the bark colors are not as pronounced outside its natural habitat.
Unfortunately, its natural habitat (South-East Asia) is being threatened by logging and use for firewood.

Credit: Filip Kulisev, AmazingPlanet.com

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Horses are magnificent creations. They are wild, majestic — and can surpass almost anything with their outstanding beauty.

The most beautiful horse you have ever seen in your life might be the very horse we are about to introduce. This horse we are referring to is from Turkey and has been called the most beautiful horse in the world by experts.

© Facebook/Pascal Mouawad
He’s an Akhal-Teke, a breed that is a direct descendant of the extinct Turkoman horse that lived in ancient times.

There’s currently only 3,500 of these kind of horses in the world.

This particular horse, which you can see below, looks like he’s been dipped in gold.

© Facebook/Pascal Mouawad
The hair of some Akhal-Teke’s is so “fine and silky that it gives a special metallic sheen to any colour”, according to the International Association of Akhal-Teke Breeding.

The Akhal-Teke has an incredibly beautiful coat that gleams in the sunlight. It’s a thoroughbred and stands between 58 and 64 inches (147 and 163 cm). In China, the horse goes by the name ‘the horse from heaven’.

And this incredible creature sure looks heavenly.


The reason for its shiny shimmer lies in the structure of its fur, which is designed to act as a light intensifier and to throw back the light rays, according to the experts.
It is believed that the ‘Akhal-Teke’ is born with this golden fur in order to use it as a camouflage in the desert.

Instagram / akhaltekesale

The breed is said to originate in Achal, Turkmenistan and dates back perhaps 3,000 years, making it the world’s oldest breed and the first to be domesticated. If you are traveling to Turkmenistan, you will notice that the breed is on their coat of arms, banknotes and even stamps.

A race horse, the Akhal-Teke’s were bred for speed, beauty, size, and strength. They are still raced in Turkmenistan. Unfortunately, the horse is listed as threatened on the Conservancy’s Conservation Priority List (CPL).

Enjoy watching this gorgeous natural miracle in this video below.


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Wombats are allowing other species to take refuge from the fires in their complex underground tunnels


Wombats have reportedly been “inviting” other species into their underground homes, as a temporary safe haven from the ongoing flames and smoke in Australia.

Their complex underground tunnels are serving as shelters for all kinds of unlikely visitors from lizards to wallabies, according to documentarian Peter Hylands, who recently ventured deep into Cobargo Wildlife Sanctuary.

“You’ve got animals that are completely unscathed and those must be the animals that have been under the ground, it’s the only explanation when the fire zones are so extensive,” he told Yahoo News.

“I’ve seen echidnas going into burrows — lizards, and skinks, rabbits — those sort of things. I have even seen a small wallaby,” Wombat Rescue manager Yolandi Vermaak told the MatadorNetwork.com.

Wombats are well known for sharing their homes with other species, according to Brigitte Stevens of the Wombat Awarenesses Organization.

Stevens once documented a 900-acre wombat burrow complex with 89 entrances.

“Because they live in dry and arid regions, many of the other animals rely on their burrows for survival,” told Yahoo.

“Inside they are full of insects, reptiles, there are birds that live in their burrows, echidnas and we also see sheep and kangaroos take shelter within the entrance.”

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