# Coconuts and migration!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 12, 2018, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945 "2018-06-12T04:47:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/21 "2018-06-12T17:34:34Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#):
>
> Because they’re carried by swallows.
Preposterous. A five ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/22 "2018-06-12T17:36:39Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> 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.
What if the swallows had a bit of creeper?
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/23 "2018-06-12T17:50:16Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> Dude, did you just say that?🙂
Hey, when a slow pitch like that comes along, you gotta swing for the fences! 😛
If I didn’t make that joke, I’d have my SmartAss card revoked.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/24 "2018-06-12T18:06:34Z")
I hear there might be a Monty Python sketch on this very subject. I am looking for it.
And, it was posed to me that coconuts have hair and milk, they could be mammals.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/25 "2018-06-12T18:08:52Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> And, it was posed to me that coconuts have hair and milk, they could be mammals.
and palms!
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/26 "2018-06-12T18:10:35Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> I hear there might be a Monty Python sketch on this very subject. I am looking for it.
I may be being wooshed, but you should be thinking less ‘sketch’ and more ‘theatrical movie’.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/27 "2018-06-12T18:16:57Z")
No whoosh. Havn’t watched much Python. Which movie?
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### Author:  [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/28 "2018-06-12T18:22:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> What if the swallows had a bit of creeper?
What? Held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/29 "2018-06-12T18:24:14Z")
Aw **Beck** , you were coming along so nicely, too.
From Monty Python and [The Holy Grail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHFXG3r_0B8)
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/30 "2018-06-12T18:40:30Z")
A lot of people have never seen the actual fruit of a coconut-palm, just the “defleshed” seed that we call a coconut. I mean, it’s fairly standard in comics and illustrations to draw palms with the brown coconuts growing on them, despite that not being reality.
Still, with the high fat content I expect a coconut floats pretty well, if not as well as
Here’s a picture of a fruit sprouting on a Hawaii beach: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut#/media/File:Coconut\_germinating\_on\_Black\_Sand\_Beach,\_Island\_of\_Hawaii.JPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut#/media/File:Coconut_germinating_on_Black_Sand_Beach,_Island_of_Hawaii.JPG)
And although dispersal by water is how the palm spreads naturally, there is some debate about how much of it’s range is accounted for by that, and how much is due to transport by sea faring humans.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/31 "2018-06-12T18:49:55Z")
Then there was that documentary about a guy who escaped Devil’s Island on a raft of coconuts netted together.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/32 "2018-06-12T18:56:58Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> Aw **Beck** , you were coming along so nicely, too.
>
> From Monty Python and [The Holy Grail](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHFXG3r_0B8)
Nobody’s perfect. I will check it out.
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### Author:  [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/33 "2018-06-12T19:51:11Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> 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’m glad you found your answer, but your cursory Google searching skills could definitely use some work! I threw in “Coconuts spread islands by floating” and literally the first 4 results were all about your question.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/34 "2018-06-12T20:26:21Z")
I hate to have to break this to you, but how do you think monkeys got to the Americas? Africa and South America were once joined, but the monkeys migrate from Africa long after the two continents split apart.
Oh, btw… coconuts float.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/35 "2018-06-12T20:51:36Z")
I wondered about that continent shifting/splitting thing. We were out to dinner when the search happened. So, yea it was a bit anemic. We forgot about it til I posted the question. I thought it was interesting. I have read more aboit it today.
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### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/36 "2018-06-12T21:36:30Z")
If you have Netflix, there is a BBC documentary called “South Pacific” that goes into this. You also get the bonus of hearing Benedict Cumberbatch mispronounce penguins. Like, every time he says it.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/37 "2018-06-12T21:45:35Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#):
>
> 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.
Both people answered the question.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/38 "2018-06-12T22:18:45Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> 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?
Under natural conditions, coconut palms are not found away from the immediate area of an ocean beach. They are highly adapted to spread between islands and along coasts by floating. Since the heavy seeds fall directly under the tree, they can’t spread inland or uphill very easily.
Basically, any coconut tree any distance from the shore has been planted there by humans (or is descended from one planted there earlier).
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/39 "2018-06-12T22:29:15Z")
> [@Wolf333](#):
>
> If you have Netflix, there is a BBC documentary called “South Pacific” that goes into this. You also get the bonus of hearing Benedict Cumberbatch mispronounce penguins. Like, every time he says it.
I will be looking for that. Loves me some BC! Thx.
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coconuts-and-migration/815945/40 "2018-06-13T00:11:14Z")
The coco de mer is large double coconut which looks rather like human buttocks. It was known for centuries from individual nuts floating on the ocean or washed up on beaches, long before the rare tree that it grows on was widely known. Ironically, the coco de mer does not spread by floating on water since, unlike most coconuts, it normally sinks, but after the husk rots off and the nut begins to decay after lying on the ocean floor a long time, it may float to the surface. This led to numerous legends about “underwater trees” and other origin stories about this mysterious nut.
> **[Legends of the coco de mer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_the_coco_de_mer)**
>
> The nut and tree of the coco de mer is a rare species of palm tree native to Africa, in the Seychelles archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It is the subject of various legends and lore. Coco de mer is endemic to the Seychelles islands of Praslin and Curieuse. Before the Seychelles were discovered and settled, nuts of this species were sometimes carried by the ocean currents to distant shores, such as those of the Maldives, where the tree was unknown. These floating nuts did not germinate. The except...
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