35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they don’t float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?
World travelers
Submitted 2 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/12823703-8aea-4272-8cf3-3d86a68d6851.jpeg
Comments
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 months ago
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Yes, but for human related reasons. Humans moved them around a lot in Africa and Asia - moving them from Southeast Asia to India and Madagascar is bound to have an impact on the currents they get caught up in.
match@pawb.social 2 months ago
are you proposing some kind of Columbus effect where people heading to India will occasionally end up in Taino land by accident
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
So thanks to humans more coconuts went for a swim?
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
According to the first article that popped up in the search results the most likely theory is portugese traders brought them over from madagascar.
XTL@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Climate change confirmed.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The float yeah and that’s how they spread, but the coconuts were mostly brought by ships.
A coconut is really good on a ship 500 years ago, you have fresh water, some nutrition, etc.
Some ship gets destroyed with a load of coconuts on board and so it began probably.
Then when even the first ones have taken root, they start floating from isle to isle themselves.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
"500 years ago*
Columbus makes the trip in 1492, 533 years ago.
Yeah that checks out.
olafurp@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m gonna cast doubt on this. It happened too conveniently after people figured out long distance sea travel.
If they would have floated it’s much more likely that it happened somewhere in the last million years rather than the last 500.
undeffeined@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Yes, it is wrong. It was the result of the sea migrations of the Astronesians
undeffeined@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Not accurate. They were taken by Astronesians during their seaborne migrartions.
Read more here
ICastFist@programming.dev 2 months ago
It also plays a central role in the Coconut Religion founded in 1963 in Vietnam.
follows the Coconut Religion link
The Coconut Religion was founded in 1963 by Vietnamese mystic and scholar Nguyễn Thành Nam,[1] also known as the Coconut Monk,[2][3] His Coconutship,[4] Prophet of Concord,[4] and Uncle Hai[4] (1909 – 1990[5]).
Oh, come the fuck on, now
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was wondering how the heck coconuts journeyed around the southern passages for what would have been probably years on ocean currents and arrive in the caribbean still viable for growth.
Or carried by a sparrow.
Not really gonna happen.
ziggurat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Is that an African or a European sparrow?
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
They took the Panama Canal, obviously.
sadicarnot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
A swallow could grip it by the husk
Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Read more here
Lol, I need to start doing that
quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
So, aliens did it. I knew it.
match@pawb.social 2 months ago
they only think coconuts floated over on their own 500 years ago because austronesians are supernaturally invisible to white people
undeffeined@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Bingo. I thought this was interesting and went looking for more information and its fake. They were brought to other parts of the world, first by austronesians and later by European sailors.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Someone in this thread needs to say who austronesians are
belastend@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Did austronesians reach the carribean? I thought they made it to madagascar and hawaii, but not the carribean.
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Coconuts have evolved to spread from island to island by floating, but it’s still weird that one happened to float to the other side of the world in historic times. I would have guessed that either the currents could never take a coconut there or that the currents would have taken a coconut there long ago.
hydrospanner@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Y’know… I’d have found all this “coconuts floated from Asia to the Caribbean” stuff pretty far fetched…
But not two years ago I was fishing, and a goddamn coconut floated right down and bumped me in the leg.
In the Monongahela River.
In Pittsburgh.
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Floating upstream - what a coconut!
expatriado@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Caribbean from Asia? did they take the Panama Canal 400 years before it was built? there is not path that isn’t crazy
lemmyng@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.
SARGE@startrek.website 2 months ago
African, or European?
IndiBrony@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They went around the horn like a real man!
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
There’s a current originating in Indian ocean flowing south of Africa to the gulf of Mexico, before proceeding north east between Iceland and Great Britain. It’s why Scandinavia is so much warmer than the same latitude in the Americas. I’m 55 north in Denmark, and have hardly seen snow this winter, meanwhile Edmonton in Canada is 2° south of that.
Coconuts bobbing around the south of Africa is pretty wild, but not implausible.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I assumed one finally got lucky and got around the southern tip of Africa while headed west.
Draegur@lemm.ee 2 months ago
No swallows necessary
Lemminary@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s not what my partner says uwu
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Oof, good point
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 months ago
The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
They could grip it by the husk
Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Please do not disturb the migratory fruits
Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
This is nuts!
Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Coconuts: the world’s strangest migratory mammal
perishthethought@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Life… finds a way.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 months ago
uh…
Grimtuck@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Do you’re telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It could grip it by the husk.
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!
voodooattack@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Does the coconut weigh more than a duck?
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition.
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?
sadicarnot@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But then of course, uh, African swallows are non-migratory.