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Coconuts, Coconut
Crabs, Barringtonia
and the First Garden in
Eden
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The centre of origin of the coconut has long been a
source of argument and controversy. Most of the argument has
been about whether coconuts were spread by man, or
not.
"...it has never been found
truly wild, every coconut palm is planted by man or derived
from such a planting."
"There is no island or shore where its presence
is not due directly or indirectly to its having been planted
by man."
T.H. Everett
(Encyclopedia of Horticulture, Vol. 3, 1981)
E.J.H. Corner
(The Natural History of Palms,
1966)
That is rampant anthropocentrism.
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But coconuts, unlike other food plants important to
us, don't really need our help with long distance seed
dispersal - they float. See a fascinating article on drifting
fruits here
at Wayne's Word, a treasury of botanical
arcana.
Charles Darwin did a great deal of research to see
if seeds could float across seas to germinate on islands and
spread species, but he did his experiments at home in England.
He was never able to test a coconut, the
ultimate Argonaut of plants.
Coconuts have been found washed
up in Norway, and germinated.
Everyone knows that rabbits got to England with the
Romans, to Australia with the English, while wallabies came to
Bedfordshire with the Dukes of same. But coconut
crabs got all around the Pacific and Indian Oceans just
with the help of coconuts.
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"Hugh C. Harries (Botanical Review Vol. 44,
1978) argues convincingly that coconuts have naturally
established themselves on beaches of the tropical Pacific.
According to Harries, there are many varieties of coconuts,
but they all belong to either of two major types known as
niu kafa and niu vai. The niu kafa types
have an elongate, angular fruit, up to 6 inches in diameter,
with a small egg-shaped nut surrounded by an unusually thick
husk. Niu vai types have a larger more spherical fruit,
up to 10 inches in diameter, with a large, spherical nut
inside a thin husk.
The niu kafa type represents the ancestral,
naturally-evolved, wild-type coconut, disseminated by
floating. The niu vai type was derived by domestic
selection for increased endosperm ("meat" and "milk") and is
widely dispersed and cultivated by humans. Both types of fruit
can float, but the thicker, angular husk adapts the niu
kafa type particularly well to remote atoll conditions
where it can be found today. |
These coconut husks from a village near me in
Siargao show both the rounded and more thick-topped husks mixed
together.
See also: Wild
coconuts |
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The presence of "undesirable"
wild-type coconuts growing in mangrove swamps is clear
evidence that they were self-sown and not planted by farmers.
In two fascinating papers by Harries and his colleagues, W.S.
Gruezo and R. Buckley (Biotropica Vol. 16, 1984), wild-type,
self-sown coconuts have been documented in the Philippines and
as far away as Australia. In addition, throughout the humid
tropics intermediate types have arisen by hybridization with
the commonly cultivated niu vai coconuts".
Source:
Wayne's Word, of course
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Domestication theory
"At one time it was thought that
the ancestors of modern Cocos nucifera reached the
Western Pacific area by long distance dispersal along a
southern route from America, with a fossil (Cocos zeylandica)
in New Zealand as a remnant of such a pathway. The concept of
a southern route is an unnecessary complication. An origin for
the whole Cocoeae tribe in western Gondwanaland seems most
compatible with the present day distribution. The tribe
probably differentiated shortly before the break up of that
super-continent. Members radiated and became very diverse in
the Americas; some rafted on the African and Madagascar
Plates, where they survive to the present day; others rafted
on the Indian plate, where they are now
extinct. |
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With its ability to float the
coconut became independent of plate tectonics for its
dispersal. The wild type evolved by floating between the
volcanic islands and atolls where these fringed the
continental plates and not on the land masses at all. Islands
in the Tethys Sea could have been the ancestral home of the
coconut, from where it dispersed by floating to other islands
in the Pacific and Indian Oceans but not into the Atlantic. It
would also have floated to continental coastlines but would
have stood less chance of surviving competition from other
plants or predation by animals until domesticated by early
man. The continental coast and larger islands of Malesia was
the site for such domestication long before both wild and
domestic types were taken into agricultural
cultivation".
(Harries, H.C. (1990) Malesian origin for a domestic
Cocos nucifera. In P.Baas et al (eds) The Plant Diversity of
Malesia 351-357) Coconut
Timeline | |
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There is genetic evidence that coconut-type palms
originated in Western South America. Or rather, there is
evidence that more existing relatives of coconut palms
live in South America than anywhere else.
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"Closest genetic
relative - In this study, molecular data alone suggest
that the wild progenitors of the coconut were from South
America, and that coconuts did not originate in the
western Pacific as currently accepted. Genetic
relationships suggest that coconut may be the only
extant member of its lineage. Fossil evidence of
Cocoecae fruits (2 - 45 Mya) from Australia, New Zealand
and India are used to estimate times of divergences of
its relatives. Geological dates imply that the coconut
was present before the advent of humans. This eliminates
any action of humans in its original
distribution" (Gunn,
B. (2004) The closest genetic relatives of the coconut
(Cocos nucifera). 9th International Congress of the
International Society of Ethno biology. University
of Kent at Canterbury) Coconut Timeline
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So, by
logical deduction, it should be that the common ancestor of
the South African Pondoland Palm (Jubaeopsis caffra), Jubea chilensis, the South American Chile
Cocopalm, and the Indo-Pacific Cocos nucifera, the Coconut, existed when
Africa and South America were joined. |
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There's a small
problem in assuming that
any flowering plants spread from Laurasia to
Gondwanaland purely by spreading across land. It seems that
the tewo continents began to split 180 million years ago,
while flowering plants didn't appear until about 142 Mya. The
only way larger-fruiting plants could spread
world-wide across new oceans would be by floating. But for at
least 80 million years, South America, North West Africa, and
Arabia were separated by very narrow 'oceans'.
So let's start
at the beginning:
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Palms are overwhelmingly tropical in
distribution. They occur in the tropics in habitats that
range from lowland rain forests to high mountains, and
from deserts to mangrove swamps. Their distribution in
the tropical zones, however, is uneven. About 1,400
species occur in tropical Asia, whereas only about 120
occur in Africa. Another 130 species occur on Madagascar
and other nearby islands in the western Indian Ocean
near Africa, and about 950 species occur in the American
tropics.
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Taking the
simple proposition that plants speciate to a greater
degree the longer they've lived in a place, it would
seem that palms in general, a very ancient race,
originated in Asia.
But to
get to South America by land at that time, they would
have had to cross Africa. So why does Africa have so few
palm species?
There's
a clue in: By the Maastrichtian, palm pollen taxa were
diverse, thus giving rise to the Upper Cretaceous
northern Gondwanan ‘palm province’ of Herngreen
& Chlonova (1981)
In addition to palms (Palmae (Arecaceae)), the
Upper Cretaceous West African records share Illiciaceae,
Linaceae (Ctenolophon), Proteaceae, Restionaceae, and
the more specialized palms Proxapertites
spp. and Spinizonocolpites
spp. The last two genera are interpreted as
indicating mangrove vegetation because of their
relationship to the living mangrove palm genus
Nypa.
Clearly, palms, including several whose taxonomic
relationships are unknown, played a significant role in
the latest Cretaceous plant communities of tropical
Africa.
The earliest solid evidence for angiosperm
tropical rainforest in Africa is based primarily on Late
Eocene to Late Oligocene (ca. 39–26
Mya) pollen assemblages from Cameroon, which are rich in
forest families. The earliest known woodland community
in tropical Africa is dated at 46 Myr ago in northern
Tanzania, as documented by leaves and fruits from lake
deposits. The grass-dominated savannah biome began to
expand in the Middle Miocene (16 Myr ago), and became
widespread in the Late Miocene (ca.8
Mya),
Palaeobotanical studies from tropical
Africa:
Bonnie F.
Jacobs Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B (2004) |
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Some scientists believe that animals have also
traveled as 'floaters'; in particular, rodents are
thought to have rafted to Australia from other
landmasses between five million to six million years
ago.
To add
to the confusion, fossils of coconuts or 'coconut
cousins' have been found in India, Australia, and New
Zealand. There are no 'native' coconuts in New Zealand
now, although there may well be in India and
Australia.
But
the very few fossils date to times when the world was a
lot warmer than it is now; and when all those places,
including India, were
islands. | | |
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Waltz of the
Worlds This
is probably quite irrelevant to the argument I'm making, but it's a
nice story, so let's ramble for a bit. |
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The world 190 million years ago. One continent,
Pangaea, ruled the world. |
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Strangely, this
map resembles one made by Hecataeus about 2000 years ago, showing
the known world from his point of view. |
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Even the
world-girdling ocean has much the same name - Oceanus for Hecataeus,
Panthalassa (All Sea) for modern geologists.
I suspect that, in
the dim and distant future, someone will find traces of lost
continents that, long, long ago, sunk to oblivion in the earth's
crust. |
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Our world 150 million years ago
- 30
million years after Pangaea started to break up into Laurasia in the
north, and Gondwanaland to the south.
North
America has split from South America.
The
Tethys Sea has already split Africa from Asia, or is working on
it. |
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Our world 95 million years
ago.
India
was beginning its race to hit Asia, to build up a few rock wrinkles,
now known as the Himalaya.
Africa split off from South America about 5 million years
earlier, so the common ancestor of Jubaeopsis caffra and Jubea chilensis must have lived before then -
at least 100Mya.
Or perhaps they didn't. Maybe some new islands
appeared at the new Atlantic Ridge, and our coconut's ancestors
floated across to them. |
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One of the best
ever 'Just-So' stories was about Ascension Island turtles. They were
supposed to come back to Ascension, in the very middle of the South
Atlantic, from Brazil and Africa, to breed - and to have been doing
so for about 100 million years, because they faithfully followed
their original paths from when the Atlantic Ocean was just a baby,
and a lot narrower. Trouble is, Ascension Island is a fairly new
volcanic creation, bang on the Atlantic Ridge, and has been around
for a lot less than 100 million years. That's
the standard refutation story now, but maybe the poor little so-n-sos
stopped at the new island, grateful they didn't have to go all the
way to Brazil. And
maybe the fact that turtles always go back to the same beach they
were born on is just another nice myth. |
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The world 45 million years ago.
India has left
Madagascar behind, but Australia has done the same to Antarctica and
New Zealand's heading off on its own.
There's a race
between them to hit Asia.
North America has
extended a shy toe towards South America.
Meanwhile, Asia
and Europe are playing footsie with Africa.
The Falkland
Islands still belong to Argentina. |
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Members of the Cocoecae
that rafted on the Indian plate are now extinct. An origin for
Cocos in the western Indian Ocean has not been generally
accepted (Purseglove/Child/Corner?), although seemingly supported by
the link with Jubaeopsis caffra (Martius),
Vaoniala in Madagascar, the presence of an Eocene fossil
fruit, Cocos sahnii 40 Mya in the Indian desert (Kaul) and
a Cocos-like stem, Palmoxylon (Cocos)
sundaram (Sahni) [Palmoxylon parthasarathyi (Sauer
1967)]
Coconut Timeline |
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The world 15 million years ago.
Africa and Arabia
have fallen out, and the Red Sea is formed. Africa decides to split,
and the Great Rift Valley begins to form.
North and South
America are joined - twice over.
Australia is
getting perilously close to SE Asia.
India has rammed
into Asia,and formed the Himalaya, changing the world's climate
system forever (or, at least, until we came along). |
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Cocos zeylandica
(according to Couper) - (18 Mya).
Coconut Timeline
This
is a bit of a puzzle - New Zealand had apparently absconded from
Australia some 40 million years before, and was still way down below
40º South, where coconuts are not supposed to
be. |
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5.2-1.6 Mya - Pliocene
Cocos
zeylandica (according to Berry) dating disputed
(Couper).
Berry, E.W. (1926)
Cocos and Phymatocaryon in the Pleiocene of New
Zealand.Am. J. Science. 12, 181-184.
Coconut Timeline
Differing over a
time difference of some ten and a half million years, in the
relatively recent past, is something that real scientists do all the
time. |
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2 Mya
Australia - A
silicified coconut fruit from the Chinchilla sands in southern
Queensland was dated to the late Pliocene, about 2 Mya (Rigby). The
Chinchilla sands are situated about 250 km west of Brisbane, and the
area is otherwise rich in fossils of semi-aquatic animals such as
crocodiles and tortoises, that suggest a more tropical and humid
climate than at present (Dowe).
Rigby, J.F. (1995) A fossil
Cocos nucifera L fruit from the latest Pliocene of
Queensland, Australia. Birbal Sahni Centenary Vol. pp 379.381
Coconut Timeline
This
is even more of a puzzle
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Could
the whole "Coconut Origins Problem" just be a case of looking
through the wrong end of the telescope?
Perhaps the real question
is:
'Why did the coconut's range
apparently diminish so much by historical
times?' |
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Introduction to the West:
Antonio Pigafetta, a nobleman from Venice, decided to explore
the world as a tourist. He boarded one of Magellan's five ships and
kept a daily journal of his captain's effort to find a western route
to the Spice Islands. Pigafetta wrote, after their first landing in
the Philippines in 1521:
"Coconuts are the fruit of the palm trees. And
as we have bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, so they get all these
things from the said trees. . . With two of these palm trees a whole
family of ten can sustain itself. . . They last for a hundred
years."
See also
Wild Coconuts |
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Coconut
Cousins |
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Jubaeopsis
caffra
Common Names:
Pondoland Palm, Kaffir Palm
Distribution: Pondoland, South Africa,
around the lower reaches of the Mtentu, Msikaba, and Mzintlava
rivers.
Habitat: Exposed coastal
hillsides.
A clumping, pinnate leaved palm to
about 5m tall, with the leaves being arranged in five
ranks.
A relative of the coconut,
as well as Jubaea
chilensis (hence the name).
Likes a sunny, well drained position,
with ground water. Very slow growing. Seeds are difficult to
germinate, although more success is being gained by just
covering the seeds with moist sphagnum moss. |
Photo and description
by PACSOA
- Jubaeopsis caffra
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Jubaeopsis caffra,
the Pondoland Palm, obviously comes from South Africa (Eastern Cape)
- from three quite widely separated river valleys (it may once have
had a much wider range). The other palm seeds shown below (which at
least look as if they are 'coconut cousins') come from South
America. |
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Jubaeopsis
caffra seeds - South Africa
www.rarepalmseeds.com |
Jubea chilensis seeds - South
America
David Ison - Seed Photos |
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Jubea chilensis, the Chile
Cocopalm, is also called Chilean wine palm or honey palm.
Although the Chile cocopalm has been successfully planted in
southern California, it is now threatened in its native
habitat because of over harvesting of its sweet sap, which is
used for making sugar and wine. The distinctive columnar trunk
grows 1 to 2 m (3 to 6 ft) in diameter. |
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Parajubea
sunkha
David Ison - Seed Photos |
Syagrus romanzoffiana
David Ison - Seed Photos |
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Syagrus cardenassii
David Ison - Seed Photos |
Syagrus romanzoffiana - Argentinian cold
hardy variety David Ison - Seed Photos |
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But
that's enough about coconut palms, let's get onto the crux of
the matter. |
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Coconut Crab - Birgus latro
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Coconut
crab - Birgus latro: More Information -
ARKive
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This species is a type of land hermit crab with
a spectacular appearance and intriguing biology. It is
probably the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world and is
able to grow to relatively gigantic proportions. Unlike most
other hermit crabs, only the juveniles of this species find
and use gastropod shells for protection as they develop.
Adults have abandoned the shell-carrying habit, and instead
have hardened shells over the abdomen. This protects the crab,
reduces water loss and does not restrict its growth, allowing
it to reach up to a metre in size. This huge crustacean is
well adapted to life on land with long strong legs. It also
has large muscular claws which are used for punching holes in
coconuts and scooping out the flesh. This is a unique
behaviour amongst crabs and explains why this species is
called the coconut crab.
Coconut
crab - Birgus latro: More Information -
ARKive
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They are omnivorous, commonly eating the
fallen fruit of Pandanus and the Coconut Palm. They use
their main claws to pull back the husk at the end (of
the coconut) which was formerly attached to the palm.
When the eyes are exposed they pierce the soft-eye with
a walking-leg claw, expand the hole with the small
pincer on the third walking-leg, and finally enlarge the
hole with the main pincer. The process takes several
days.
Cook
Islands Biodiversity : Birgus latro - Coconut
Crab |
Pandanus fruit
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Pandanus
fruit are no easy meal either. The 'eyes' have a skin
tougher than pineapple, the pith is tough, and the
'fruity bits' at the base of each eye are so small that
even my fruit bats disdain them.
Pandanus
may also be an oceanic traveller - its distribution is
now world
wide. |
[Coconut crab] claws are in fact so powerful
they can lift objects such as vegetation or rocks weighing up
to 28 kg. Its stalked eyes are red, and this crab’s body
colour varies between islands from purplish-blue to
orange-red. Studies show that males are considerably larger
than females.
Range - Birgus latro is
found on oceanic islands and small offshore islets adjacent to
large continental islands across a broad geographical range in
the tropical Indo-Pacific region, extending from the Aldabras
Islands in the Indian Ocean to Easter Island in the Pacific
Ocean.
Coconut
crab - Birgus latro: More Information - ARKive
This is
very much the same range proposed for 'prehistorical'
coconuts.
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Easter
Island (or Te Pito Te Henua, the navel of the world) is
about 2000 miles (3200km) from the nearest Polynesian
islands, the Tuamotus. The Polynesian settlers who
arrived and settled about 400AD were seemingly affected
by their isolation after a millennium or so, and went a
little bonkers. In short, they 'got religion' in a big
way. They started erecting their famous huge statues,
moving them down from the single island mountain on
coconut tree rollers, using as labour all the fishermen
and farmers.
Soon,
there were very, very few coconut trees left. By the
16th and 17th centuries they began to starve, and
started pulling down rival clans' statues.
An
area on the western coast is now 'reserved' by the
Chilean government for the indigenous population; the
rest is used as grazing land for sheep and
cattle.
But
it's nice to know that coconut crabs survived, at
least. |
Chile Reportajes Isla de Pascua. Rapa
Nui
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Habitat - Inhabits rock crevices
and sand burrows along the coastline, though preferences vary
between islands, depending on the habitat available. For
example, on Olango Island in the Philippines, coconut crabs
live in burrows in coral rock and thick undergrowth, while on
Guam Island, in Oceania, they establish burrows within the
porous limestone substrate.
Biology - Birgus latro is
almost entirely terrestrial and has adapted so well to living
on land that it actually drowns in water. That said, it does
still breathe through modified gills. The gills are surrounded
by spongy tissues which need to be kept moist. The coconut
crab does this by dipping its legs into water and passing them
over the gills. The crab does require some contact with the
sea as it often drinks the water to maintain its salt balance,
and females need to return to sea to release
eggs.
By day the coconut crab inhabits burrows
where it is protected from desiccation and intruders, and by
night it wanders across the beach in search of food. As its
name suggests this crab feeds on coconuts, and is actually
able to climb coconut palms and pinch off coconuts with its
powerful claws. If the coconut does not break open on its
fall, the crab punches an opening in the top of the seed and
scoops out the flesh. This crab feeds on more than just
coconuts however, and will scavenge for anything organic from
fruit to leaves. It also feeds on the moulted exoskeletons of
other crustaceans, which are thought to provide calcium for
its own carapace growth.
Courtship in most hermit crabs is a
prolonged experience, but between coconut crabs it is quick,
simple and infrequent.
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Sex
for Coconut Crabs sounds like enormous
fun... |
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Mating occurs near the sea and involves
the male pushing the female onto her back and using his
5th periopod (I sometimes wish I had one of
those) to place the sperm-sac (spermatophore)
over the gonopore at base of the walking legs. After
this the female lives within 100 metres of the sea to
regularly moisten herself with seawater. 1-2 weeks after
mating the female extrudes the eggs past the sperm-sac
so they are fertilized and holds them in a mass with her
abdominal pleopods. The eggs take 3-6 weeks to mature.
The young (as zoea) are spawned from the eggs into the
water around the first and last quarters. The zoea takes
3-6 weeks to go through 4-5 zoea stages and form an
amphibious stage called a glaucothoe. The benthic,
shrimp-like glaucothoe finds a minute shell and after
3-4 weeks it migrates ashore. After about 4 weeks of
living around the high tide mark, it transforms into a
juvenile crab, which continues to use a gastropod shell
for 1-2 years, and lives very secretively in burrows.
Cook
Islands Biodiversity : Birgus latro - Coconut Crab |
The shell-living habit serves to protect
the juveniles from desiccation and predation during this early
and vulnerable life stage. When they reach a size where their
carapace measures about 2.5 cm across, the shell-carrying
habit is given up. Their abdomen develops a hardened shell
itself which is moulted regularly to allow the crab continuous
growth. Moulting occurs in the safety of a burrow and takes
around 30 days, after which the crab eats the cast-off shell.
These crabs are slow growing, and it is not known how long
they live for.
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DENR/PAL
- Our Natural Heritage
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Small Birgus latro
- note the size of the coconut fronds
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Threats - The coconut crab is
threatened by intensive hunting for food as it is considered,
on many islands, as a delicacy and an aphrodisiac. It is
uncommon throughout much of its present range, though on less
populated islands it may be abundant. In more recent years,
development along the coastline of islands has modified or
destroyed much of this crab’s habitat. With increased
tourism these crabs are also caught and sold as curios.
Predation by introduced pigs, rats, monitor lizards and
monkeys are also a threat to juvenile crabs.
Conservation - On some islands
these crabs have limited protection. For example, in Papua New
Guinea villagers are asked not to collect coconut crabs for
food, and on Saipan Island it is prohibited to collect coconut
crabs with carapaces smaller than 3.5cm, or between 1st June
and 30th September when breeding occurs.
However,
it is important to conduct thorough surveys to determine the
full distribution of this species, and ascertain the extent to
which populations are threatened in order to help develop
conservation measures.
There
have been proposals for a reserve in the Togian Islands,
Sulawesi, for this species’ protection, and also the
establishment of captive breeding programs. Though the coconut
crab is not severely threatened, increasing populations,
tourism and development on Pacific and Indian Ocean islands
will soon threaten this crab as it has done so many species
worldwide. It is therefore important to be pro-active and
protect this unique species for the future.
I
predict it will go the way of the dodo in what's left of my
lifetime.
This information is awaiting authentication
by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible.
If you are able to help please contact:
arkive@wildscreen.org.uk
Coconut
crab - Birgus latro: More Information -
ARKive |
References
IUCN Red List 2003 (January
2004)
http://www.arkive.org/tracker/http://www.redlist.org
Wells, S., Pyle, R.M., Collins, N.M.
(1984) The IUCN Invertebrate Red Data Book IUCN, Gland,
Switzerland.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community
(January 2004)
http://www.arkive.org/tracker/http://www.spc.org.nc/coastfish/Countries/CookIslands/MMR/7Somespecies/Ccrab.htm
Altevogt, R., Davis., T.A. (1975)
Birgus latro India’s monstrous crab. A study and an
appeal. Bulletin of the Department of Marine Sciences,
University of Cochin.
Grubb, P. (1971) Ecology of terrestrial
decapod crustaceans on Aldabra. Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. 260:
411-416.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO) (November 2005)
http://www.arkive.org/tracker/http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC281E/AC281E03.htm
Held, E.E. (1963) Moulting behaviour of
Birgus latro. Nature, 200:
799-800.
Coconut
crab - Birgus latro: More Information - ARKive
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It's difficult to assess the original full range
of coconut crabs.
They seem to be 'missing' from major populated coasts,
although they are seen, from time to time, as shown by the
'official' UN map for their distribution. They're a very nice
dish - it's likely that people eat them all.
On the mainland, they suffered the same fate as the
giant animals of the Quaternary (Overkill) and at probably
around the same time.
Coconut crabs can only grow to full giant size on
islands where there are no other major predators. They can
handle almost every small island predator, except a hungry
human.
Quite unlike 'classic' island giant species or island
dwarfs, coconut crabs can travel. They make the very best of
wherever they end up. |
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Bito- On -
Sea Poison
Tree - Barringtonia |
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"Beaches of French Polynesia are often
littered with a buoyant drift fruit resembling a small coconut
with flattened sides. It is called box fruit (Barringtonia
asiatica) and is one of the most durable and widespread of all
drifters, remaining buoyant for at least two years. In fact,
they are used as fishing floats in Southeast Asia. This was
one of the first tropical drifters to reach Krakatau after the
catastrophic volcanic eruption of August 1883." Drift Seeds and Drift
Fruits
See also: Eco-Friendly
Poisons. Barringtonia is widely used throughout the
Pacific and Indian oceans as a fish poison, and its fruit
shells as fishing floats. |
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The distribution map for the two Barringtonia species
is almost the same as that for the Coconut Crab (Birgus
latro). It is, just as the coconut crab, also established on many local
'mainland' shores.
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Bito-On -
B. asiatica
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Two widespread species of
Barringtonia (Lecythidaceae) are among a long list of
mangrove and littoral species (the Indo-Pacific strand flora)
to have reached Madagascar by ocean dispersal. Nevertheless,
the distributions of B. asiatica and B. racemosa
in the western Indian Ocean contain a random component: B.
asiatica is present on Mauritius, but not on Reunion, and
has failed to reach the E. African coast; B. racemosa
has reached the E. African coast, but is not present in
Mauritius or Reunion; both are present in the Seychelles
(Payens 1967). To some extent the distributions reflect
differing ecological preferences (B. asiatica on sand
just above the tide line; B. racemosa in estuarine
habitat), but there is also a stochastic (ie random)
element.
MBG: Research: Projects: Africa:
Malagasy/Indo-australo-malesian Phytogeographic
Connections
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Who could have spread these plants
? |
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Adapted
from Stephen Oppenheimer - Map of Austronesian
Languages - 'The Eden in the East'
p.164 |
The
distribution maps for both the Coconut Crab and
Barringtonia almost coincide, not only with the
proposed 'original spread' of modern Coconuts, but
also, inconveniently for my hypothesis, with the
distribution of Austronesian languages, from
Madagascar to Hawaii and Easter Island.
It's
very possible that these people took both the
Coconut and Barringtonia, not necessarily as seed
plants, but simply as food, water, and cooking
charcoal (Coconuts) and fish poison and net floats
(Barringtonia).
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It
helps that Coconut Crabs appear to have got to the same
places naturally, but they could also have just 'stowed
away' on boats, either as juveniles or
larvae. Not very likely that Austronesian voyagers would
have taken pregnant female crabs with them, and let them
go. |
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The
Indian Ocean islands don't appear to have been settled
until relatively late, though it would not be stretching
belief to consider many of them were first 'discovered'
by the same Austronesians who settled Madagascar.
The
huge island of Madagascar was settled by
Austronesian-speaking peoples (the Malagasy language
appears to have relatives in Borneo) in the early
centuries AD, although some scientists believe
settlement was much earlier.
See, for
strange evidence of this: Indris
It's a
mystery how settlers going to Madagascar 'knew' where
the island was, 3500 miles (5600km) away from the
nearest point in Indonesia, and why intervening islands
were not also settled by them, or why, if they came
coastwise, there seem to be no Austronesian 'pockets' in
Burma, India, Sri Lanka, the Arabian coast, or the East
African coast. |
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Neither the Seychelles nor Reunion and Mauritius
were settled until 'modern' times (Seychelles from 1768;
Mauritius from 1598, but only heavily by imported Indian
labour from 1861; Reunion from 1662)
But they were all known in the 9th & 10th
centuries by Arab mariners, and visited by Malays and
Portuguese in the 15th & 16th
centuries.
Another
Indian Ocean island group, the Cocos-Keeling islands,
were first settled in 1826.
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Only ten years later (not long
enough to grow imported coconut trees), a famous
naturalist visited:
"APRIL 1, 1836. We arrived in view
of the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the
Indian Ocean . . . the main vegetable production
is the cocoa-nut. The whole prosperity of the
place depends on this tree; the only exports being
oil from the nut, and the nuts themselves. . .
Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature
with the means to open and feed on this most
useful production".
"On some of the
smaller islets nothing could be more elegant than
the manner in which the young and full-grown
cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each other's
symmetry, were mingled into one
wood".
"During another day
I visited West Islet, on which the vegetation was
perhaps more luxuriant than on any other. The
cocoa-nut trees generally grow separate, but here
the young ones flourished beneath their tall
parents, and formed with their long and curved
fronds the most shady arbours. Those alone who have tried it know
how delicious it is to be seated in such shade,
and drink the cool pleasant fluid of the
cocoa-nut".
Charles Darwin (1839) Voyage of the
Beagle.
Coconut Timeline
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The
Maldives were first settled by Buddhist peoples from
southern Asia. Islam was introduced in the 12th century,
and the islands became a boat-building centre (using
coconut wood & fibre) for the Arabs of Oman and the
Hadrhamaut (East of Aden).
All of
these islands have coconuts, coconut crabs, and one or
other species of Barringtonia.
And so
do other ones far to the east in the Pacific
Ocean.
Pitcairn,
named for the sailor who first sighted it in 1767,
settled by the mutineers of the Bounty in 1790 (They
themselves were not 're-discovered' until 1808, and only
one of them survived) had already been settled by
Polynesians, who lived, and eventually died there,
between 1100 and 1500 AD.
Fletcher Christian (Marlon
Brando to you and me) was said to have mutinied after
being wrongly accused of stealing a handful of coconuts.
Pitcairn already had coconuts when the mutineers
arrived. |
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What is really needed to strengthen
the case for natural distribution is another plant, not
known to have any great uses for humans, that got to
much the same places altogether by itself.
Luckily, we
have: |
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DENR/PAL - Our
Natural Heritage |
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Strongylodon
macrobotrys
Jade Vine with sunbird
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Strongylodon
(Fabaceae) includes a widespread species,
S. lucidus, that has reached Hawaii and Tahiti (Huang
1991). In the western Indian Ocean, S. lucidus is
present only on Reunion, although Madagascar also harbors a
distinct section Craveniae with two species, indicative of an
earlier dispersal event.
MBG: Research: Projects: Africa:
Malagasy/Indo-australo-malesian Phytogeographic
Connections |
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It's quite possible that Strongylodon is a very useful
plant, as a spice, for medicine, or whatever, and was an
essential part of every Austronesian's boating pack, but
checking through various herbal and spice lists, I have found
no mention of it. It seems it was useless, except
perhaps as a garden ornamental. I can't see serious sailors
taking those along. |
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Additional examples of imbalanced
distributions include: Gluta (Anacardiaceae) - 1 sp.
Madagascar, 28 spp. Malesia; Hibbertia (Dilleniaceae) -
1 (variable) sp. Madagascar, > 100 spp. Malesia, centered
in Australia; Keraudrenia (Sterculiaceae) - 1 sp.
Madagascar, 8 spp. Australia.
MBG: Research: Projects: Africa:
Malagasy/Indo-australo-malesian Phytogeographic
Connections |
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So, the case for the natural distribution
of Coconuts, Coconut Crabs, Barringtonia, Strongylodon, and
probably the Austronesians themselves, by wind and current,
seems to be made. |
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What winds and
currents? |
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This ocean
current map shows how the Indian Ocean North Equatorial
Current goes the 'wrong way', in differing monsoon seasons.
Most strong ocean currents in the Northern Hemisphere go
clockwise, like the winds, but this doesn't. It's a major
cause for the dryness of the Baluchistan, Arabian and Somali
coasts. Simply put, it brings dry air from the land mass,
instead of wet air from the sea. It's probably also the major
cause of the almost complete absence now of reef corals on the
ocean coast from Northern Kenya to the Rann of Kutch - that
twiddly bit off the left-hand top side of India.
You can see
exactly why coconuts ended up, coming from Malaysia, in East
Africa and Southern India, but not, perhaps, in the Arabian
Gulf.
The strong
south-running Agulhas current (between Africa and Madagascar - not shown on
this map) perhaps 'cuts off' Africa from Madagascar. But it
also brings the western end of the 'Indo-Pacific' province of
sea shells, strand flora and voyagers right down to the right
hand bottom corner of Africa. | |
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Proto-Domestication
- Paraculture
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Take a wheat
seed, or rice, or millet, or teosinte (maize), or any other of
the grassy grains that sustain us all now, both ways - as
grain for bread, chapatis, or tortillas, simply as a boiled-up
filler, or, as mainly in the West, feed for our meat producing
animals.
Then put
yourself in the position of trying to understand how plants
grow, without the precedent of 10,000 years of farming.
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How long
would it take you to realise that a great big grass and even
more edible seeds could come from just one tiny little bit
of fertilised ovule that was sometimes good to
eat? |
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Just as a
tester - see if you can identify the three seed types shown
above. |
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How would
you ever find out that scattering a few of those little
seeds could produce a new crop in a few months' time?
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How would
you ever learn to keep a bit of the seed crop back to plant
next year? |
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Why
would you want to eat a few grass seeds anyway, when
you've spent 2 million years trying to learn not to? |
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Could the
new growth have just come from the air, like diseases
(cholera, malaria, and so on - named for their supposed
source - and not identified as separate living entities
until just over 100 years ago)?
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Spontaneous
Generation... |
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...or
abiogenesis, was an ancient theory holding that certain lower
forms of life, especially insects, reproduce by
physicochemical agencies (that's magic!) from inorganic
substances.
An Italian
physician, Francesco Redi, disproved (1668) the prevailing
notion that the maggots of flies were generated in putrefying
meat exposed to air.
In 1768, the
Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani further showed that
micro-organism-containing solutions that were boiled and then
sealed off would remain free of micro-organisms
thereafter
In 1836
Theodor Schwann provided additional proof with still more
meticulous experiments.
Then came
Louis Pasteur, in "On the Organized Particles Existing in the
Air" (1862). He sowed particles in suitable sterilized
nutrient broths, and found that after a day or two the broth
teemed with living microorganisms.
A German
botanist, Ferdinand Julius Cohn, found they were plants. He
named them bacteria.
A British
physicist, John Tyndall, showed (1869), by passing a beam of
light through the air in a box, that whenever dust was present
putrefaction eventually occurred; when dust was absent,
putrefaction did not occur.
These
experiments resulted in the demise of the theory of
spontaneous generation. |
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But
blame must also be put on the Frenchman, Louis Pasteur,
for allowing his name to be perpetuated in the process
of 'pasteurisation' that can destroy:
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Those
10% of bacteria that are definite nasties.
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The
other 90% which may be beneficial.
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Almost
all of the volatile oils (known as 'flavour' to you
and me)
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And
most of the water-soluble vitamins
- in
whatever foods we allow this to be done in our
name. | |
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We didn't even know where we came from,
for a long time: |
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In 1651 the
British scientist William Harvey proposed the idea that all
animals develop from eggs. In 1677 a different view was
advocated by the Dutch naturalist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, who
was the first to observe human sperm under the microscope.
Leeuwenhoek believed that sperm contained a child in
miniature, which grew larger inside the female’s
body. | |
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The
First Garden in Eden? |
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Adam might
have been hard put not to recognise a sprouting
coconut, and then tell Eve to collect a few for the
garden. |
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Not many
seeds, if any, are so obvious, and very few others have a
ready-made carrying handle |
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The stem of a young coconut is
as strong as any cane. |
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Eve could
easily have carried one in each hand |
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As
Pigafetta wrote in 1521: "And two of
these trees will sustain a family of ten persons"
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Coconuts
were the very earliest energy foods in human history. |
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Coconut
meat has just a very little bit less energy content than the
same equivalent of raw rice, wheat, or maize, but was
available, year round, without grinding, milling, or any
other tedious farm work, along most of the Indo-Pacific
shoreline, from the dawn of humanity. |
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Wild
coconuts from Siargao Island |
kCals
per 100gm |
Rice,
brown, medium-grain, raw
|
362 |
Wheat,
durum
|
362 |
Corn,
yellow
|
365 |
|
Millet,
raw |
378 |
|
Coconut
meat, raw |
354 |
Game
meat, deer, raw
|
120 |
|
www.nutritiondata.com |
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Jared Diamond, in ' Guns, Germs and Steel', does a very
good job of demolishing our Eurocentric and Sinocentric
notions of superiority, by showing the benefits of our
happenstances of living in the same places as certain prolific
large-seed grasses (Europe - wheat, barley, oats, and
China - rice, and exploiting others - Mexico - maize ), but
perhaps doesn't go far enough in damning the subsequent
over-population/infestation and rampant industrial
exploitation that has been the result of these historical
accidents.
Stephen Oppenheimer in 'Eden in the East' promotes the
very seductive and wonderful idea of a drowned continent,
twice as big as India - Sundaland, which once occupied the
continental shelf between Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. It
disappeared after the melting of the Northern ice sheets. He
speculates that, with the help of archaeological evidence
(precious little), and shared myths, that it was they who
influenced the Mesopotamians and stimulated the growth of
cities, agriculture, and so on, and got us all into our
current mess. It was the South East Asians who 'civilized' us,
and not vice-versa. | |
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Conclusions -
(mostly justified) &
Speculations - (perhaps not so much) |
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Coconut
Origins
|
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Coconut crabs 'travel' on coconuts, coconut debris, or at
very least, the same currents.
-
The
same currents and winds distribute Barringtonia and Strongylodon
fruit.
-
Barringtonia fruit are still used as fish poisons right
across Oceania, and in Africa.
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It's difficult to assess the 'original natural range'
of coconuts now, because we've planted the things everywhere
in the tropics during 'recent' history - that is, in the last
500 years. As gene studies become easier to do, I
strongly suspect that the 'original range' will turn out to be
the same as those of Barringtonia, Stronglylodon and Birgus
latro, superimposed with layers of human-aided distribution in
both prehistoric and historic times.
Hugh Harries suggests that Palmyra Atoll in the
Pacific, and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, 16000 miles
apart, and with remarkably similarly shaped 'wild' coconuts,
and both uninhabited at the time of 'discovery', represent the
original natural range limits.
I would suggest, though, that this is a
conservative estimate, not taking into account that wild
coconuts on inhabited shores may have, long ago, been swamped
by cultivars. That, without material or genetic evidence, can
never be proven. |
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Taking wildly different creatures that:
We could speculate that it's more than likely that all
four ended up in the same places quite naturally, without
human intervention, and have been there for millennia, if not
several million years. |
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Coconuts and Early
Humans
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We might then infer that Early Humans (Homo
erectus) found the 'miracle fruit', coconuts, already in
place on the shoreline of East Africa, and then just followed
them round the Indian Ocean shoreline and into South East
Asia, around 1½ million years ago.
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Coconuts
have almost the same food energy density as rice
(354 kcals/100gms vs 362
kcals/100gms) - a crucial necessity in
developing the extraordinary human brain.
See: Fat
& The Brain - Why DHA Matters
The very
crucial combination of high energy foods with seafood sources
of high DHA content at the shoreline would solve the
conundrum, in one stroke, of just how humans managed to obtain
the 'brain foods' necessary to develop a large brain at all.
Later,
if wandering humans just semi-consciously
selected the biggest ones, they could have gone through the
same haphazard processes as teosinte/maize and
emmer/einkorn/wheat to become 'domesticated' - the First
Garden in Eden.
See also: Paraculture
Nobody
needed to be a Palaeolithic Luther Burbank to pick out the
biggest coconuts. |
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I haven't much more
intelligence than Homo erectus, and certainly no green
thumb, but the coconut I found on a beach last year and dumped
into my garden corner is now a ten-foot treelet.
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And yes, my photos of the coconut sprouting on the
beach were set-up jobs, but then so was the famous photo of US
Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima.
| | |
.jpg)
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