The lil’wrekker made a statement that coconuts migrated to other lands by floating on the ocean. Island hopping, as it were. Needless to say, we roared with laughter at the very idea. Now I am second guessing. Could this have really happened?
Um, yeah.
Why would this concept be so preposterous?
Because they’re carried by swallows.
Deeeuuuurrr.
But srsly…why wouldn’t that be a perfectly reasonable explanation? Even not having that knowledge beforehand, I would think many thoughtful people’s reaction would be “Huh…never considered that. I suppose I should either accept that information or perhaps do some research on my own,” rather than roaring with laughter.
ETA how old is “lil’wrekker?”
She’s 18. I would have never thought it could be true. I can see, maybe people migrating and carrying coconuts island to island. Well I never…
Coconuts (and birds, animals, bugs, plants and various other life-forms) migrate much easier than peeps who need a boat, and often have to face Customs Officers at the other end.
Coconuts float. How far they can travel and for how long and still germinate is open to question, but clearly it is hundreds of miles over a period of weeks, and that without the aid of storms or vegetation rafts believed to carry animals form continent to continent. OTOH the coconut is too heavy to become airborne and unlikely to be carried far by any animal other than humans, so their presence inland must be due to human transportation.
I meant indigenous peoples on islands in the SouthSeas in out-rigger canoes and the like. I didn’t mean ocean liners and travelers.
But do coconuts float on the waves and land on the next islands beach where it takes root and grows into a tree? Or not?
Yes, they do. The only question is how far apart the islands can be.
This is just so interesting to me. Thanks for your responses. I will relay these to the lil’wrekker. With an apology from her dear old Mom.
You even get crabs that hitch lifts on floating coconuts.
Well their larvae do, I thought the adults did but faulty memory.
I like how the first two posts of this thread basically call the OP a dumbass and “not-thoughtful” and don’t answer the question.
Welcome to the dope! Where people would rather call you a dipshit than answer the question.
Gee, I wonder why their is declining membership on that dope.
It is kind of weird that someone would find the concept so outrageous. But you know what they say, born a spore, diaspore.
I didn’t take it as being called a ‘dumbass’. Call me dense or whatever, I thought the question a perfectly reasonable query. I have never been near the South Seas. I have never read anything about floating coconuts propagating on islands far away. So, ok. Maybe it was a preposterous question, but if you don’t know you don’t know. The way to find out is to ask questions. We did a cursory Google search with no results. So there you have it.
I can sort of understand that. I’d assume you could have interpolated the correct conclusion from information you already knew, but the data points are far apart if you didn’t know that coconuts float, and it could have seemed like a leap to you from what information you did have.
Get away with you, no-one called the OP a “dispshit” it was the mildest of teasing when you consider that it was about finding the idea of floating coconuts ridiculous.
You are overreacting.
There is also this recent study on sweet potatoes, BTW.
Every plant species needs some mechanism for spreading. And when your natural habitat is a large number of small islands, you specifically need a mechanism for spreading across oceans.
Doubtless a lot of the spread of coconuts nowadays is due to humans deliberately planting them, but what would they have done before humans? I suppose that they might have existed on only one island before being discovered by humans, but living on only one island is not a recipe for long-term survival.
I love a good archaeologist fight. One guy gets the rock, the other guy gets the pointy stick. Twenty quatloos on the pointy stick.
They’re big, but I wouldn’t call them coconuts.
Dude, did you just say that?