Like the Ents from JRR Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings saga, the Walking Palms (Socratea exorrhiza) in the Sumaco Biosphere Reserve in Ecuador, move across the forest, sometimes 2-3 centimetres per day. “As the soil erodes, the tree grows new, long roots that find new and more solid ground. Then, slowly, as the roots settle in the new soil and the tree bends patiently towards the new roots, the old roots slowly lift into the air. The whole process for the tree to relocate to a new place with better sunlight and more solid ground can take a couple of years,” says palaeobiologist Peter Vrsansky.
The experience has been daunting as they forage from the forest and survive arduous conditions; Vrsansky recalls losing about 10kg of weight within a week. But despite the hardships, Vrsansky said he was exhilarated when he found, in a single spot, more than 150 cockroach species – more than those currently living in all of Europe. These cockroaches were nothing like the hideous critters lurking around your house; they were all different colours, many either luminescent, shining in the dark, or impossible to discriminate from their backgrounds due to their ability camouflage themselves by mimicking leafs.
Picture Credit : Google
