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 days 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 days ago
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days 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 days 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 days ago
So thanks to humans more coconuts went for a swim?
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days 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 days ago
Climate change confirmed.
olafurp@lemmy.world 2 days 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 1 day ago
Yes, it is wrong. It was the result of the sea migrations of the Astronesians
undeffeined@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Not accurate. They were taken by Astronesians during their seaborne migrartions.
Read more here
ICastFist@programming.dev 2 days 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 days 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 days ago
Is that an African or a European sparrow?
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
They took the Panama Canal, obviously.
sadicarnot@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A swallow could grip it by the husk
Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Read more here
Lol, I need to start doing that
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 days 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 days ago
"500 years ago*
Columbus makes the trip in 1492, 533 years ago.
Yeah that checks out.
match@pawb.social 2 days 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 days 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 days ago
Someone in this thread needs to say who austronesians are
belastend@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Did austronesians reach the carribean? I thought they made it to madagascar and hawaii, but not the carribean.
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 days 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 days 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 days ago
Floating upstream - what a coconut!
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Oof, good point
expatriado@lemmy.world 2 days 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 days ago
Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.
SARGE@startrek.website 2 days ago
African, or European?
IndiBrony@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They went around the horn like a real man!
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 2 days 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 days ago
I assumed one finally got lucky and got around the southern tip of Africa while headed west.
Draegur@lemm.ee 2 days ago
No swallows necessary
Lemminary@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s not what my partner says uwu
Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Please do not disturb the migratory fruits
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days 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 1 day ago
They could grip it by the husk
Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
This is nuts!
Revan343@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Coconuts: the world’s strangest migratory mammal
perishthethought@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Life… finds a way.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 days ago
uh…
Grimtuck@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Do you’re telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It could grip it by the husk.
PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!
voodooattack@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Does the coconut weigh more than a duck?
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition.
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?
sadicarnot@lemmy.world 2 days ago
But then of course, uh, African swallows are non-migratory.