Miniature white towers surrounded by 'picket fences' on trees leave scientists totally baffled

A mysterious structure which has appeared in the Peruvian Amazon - and appears to be a spire surrounded by a white picket fence - is baffling scientists. 

The first of the structures was spotted just months ago on June 7, by Troy Alexander, a graduate student at Georgia Tech.

He discovered the bizarre formation on the bottom of some blue tarpaulin close to the Tambopata Research Center, in southeastern Peru.

Intricate structures that resemble white picket fences surrounding a spire have been discovered in the Peruvian Amazon

He has since posted pictures on websites to find out their origin and any detail explaining what they were. To date no-one has given a definitive answer

William Eberhard, an entomologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute told the site he had no idea what made it or what it was. 

Norm Platnick, curator emeritus of spiders at the American Museum of Natural History, added: 'I’ve seen the photo, but have no idea what animal might be responsible.'

Linda Rayor, of Cornell University, hazarded a guess that it might be a 'lacewing' but admitted she did not know either what it was.

Some have suggested it was created by the Urodidae family or species, known for weaving basket-like cocoons, or that it is an incomplete cocoon, or the work of a moth in the Bucculatricidae family.