Do you’re telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!
Caribbean from Asia? did they take the Panama Canal 400 years before it was built? there is not path that isn’t crazy
Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.
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.
Great article. It’s worth remembering that DNA is only evidence that someone banged, and I imagine there’s a fair amount of contact that goes on before that.
A North American group from Colombia
I hope this person just meant to say “Native American”, and doesn’t really think Colombia is in North America.
(sorry, I’ve spent the last week proofreading articles…)
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.
(When I visit Florida, I see coconuts float by sometimes. Some have been in the water a long time - they’re covered in barnacles. However, if they’re still floating does that mean they might still be viable?)
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.
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.
35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they didn’t float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?
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.
