[crazygringo]

> The fruit had a larger pit and less flesh than today’s avocados, but it really served as a quick snack for big mammals like the mammoth... How the avocado still exists in the wild after surviving its evolutionary failures remains a puzzle. But once Homo sapiens evolved to the point where it could cultivate the species, the fruit had the chance to thrive anew. Back when the giant beasts roamed the earth, the avocado would’ve been a large seed with a small fleshy area—less attractive to smaller mammals such as ourselves.

I don't see the puzzle at all.

13,000 years ago yes humans hunted and killed off the megafauna. But they wouldn't be agriculturalists yet for thousands more years -- they still hunted and gathered. Avocados had a lot less fruit to them (since cultivation wasn't a thing yet), but that was true of many, probably most, wild fruits and vegetables at the time. Humans ate them all despite how they had less flesh -- they just ate more of them I guess. (And it's not like the avocado was more attractive to a mammoth than a person...) And so humans would have presumably been distributing the seeds as they took home sacks of them and some fell out, or they dumped leftover pits somewhere else in the forest.

The fact that avocados became cultivated in the first place almost certainly implies we were eating them already, and therefore transporting their pits often enough too.

I don't understand on what basis the author can assume humans weren't eating the original avocados...???

[ars]

And couldn't a new world monkey simply carry the avocado somewhere else to eat it?

Does it have to pass through the gut?

[hombre_fatal]

I had an avocado tree in the backyard growing up and the avocados would fall and grow new plants.

The next avocado you eat, leave it in an inch of water and it will sprout in a couple weeks, splitting in half to extend roots and a small canopy.

Had I not had to weed the backyard as a kid during avocado season, the plants would've kept growing from fallen avocados. They have these massive yolks that let them grow pretty much anywhere, as long as they find their way to some soil after a while.

I'm sure megafauna gave them a nice travel system.

[martin-adams]

We took an avocado seed left over from one from the fridge, and grew it. It's now about 1.5m tall.

[dehrmann]

I've seen squirrels carry them to eat later (it's a ridiculous sight), but humans imported both the squirrels and avocados here (the Bay Area).

[zaarn]

Squirrels will carry and eat pretty much anything (rats of thre trees) including avocadoes, apples, small melons, compost, other squirrels and dead birds. If they can move it, they eat it. Plus points if it can be burried for winter.

[dehrmann]

Now that you mention it, a squirrel also stole a melon I was growing.

[fouc]

An invasive species carrying an invasive species.

[dsfyu404ed]

Observed by an invasive species.

[EForEndeavour]

All species are invasive if you go back far enough.

[dsfyu404ed]

I'm seeing the beginnings of standup routine that literally everyone in California will find offensive. I'm having trouble fleshing out the details though.

[__HYde]

In what sense did humans import squirrels to the bay area?

[dehrmann]

I'm actually not sure if cities in the bay area did, but lots of other cities did: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/uptown-squirrel/

[__HYde]

Thanks for sharing this. That article is very interesting. I only thought about the fact that squirrels were a native species and didn't consider the fact that cities are not "natural".

[ulises314]

Avocado is a perfectly North American plant.

[dehrmann]

Not this far north.

[senorjazz]

No, our compost hole in the garden has about 10+ small avocado trees growing from it and around when the chickens disturb it.

Tend to see them sprout up best after sustained rain, temps 25c-30c in the shade

[HillaryBriss]

you're right. it doesn't. i've seen pits that have germinated and taken root all by themselves in the leaf litter below an avocado tree.

[pvaldes]

it really served as a quick snack for big mammals like the mammoth...

As a metaphor it works, but is unprobable that a species carefully adapted to extreme chilling cold and another species adapted to do no stand any cold would share space and a trophic link