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[-] Grimtuck@lemmy.world 128 points 2 weeks ago

Do you're telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 60 points 2 weeks ago

It could grip it by the husk.

[-] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 56 points 2 weeks ago

It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!

[-] floo@retrolemmy.com 44 points 2 weeks ago

I’m so glad that this 50-year-old joke is still funny.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 29 points 2 weeks ago

Good jokes never die, nor do Black Knights.

[-] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
[-] madjo@feddit.nl 4 points 2 weeks ago

What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!

[-] towerful@programming.dev 10 points 2 weeks ago

What's not funny is how old I feel now

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[-] voodooattack@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Depends. Does the coconut weigh more than a duck?

[-] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

I don't know, I wasn't expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition.

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[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 116 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they didn't float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?

[-] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 44 points 2 weeks 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 30 points 2 weeks 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 6 points 2 weeks ago

So thanks to humans more coconuts went for a swim?

[-] FundMECFSResearch 19 points 2 weeks 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.

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[-] olafurp@lemmy.world 69 points 2 weeks 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.

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[-] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 68 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Not accurate. They were taken by Astronesians during their seaborne migrations.

Read more here

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 46 points 2 weeks 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

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 25 points 2 weeks ago

Coconutship

Definitely a sex cult.

[-] A7thStone@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

Repressed memory unlocked.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks 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 10 points 2 weeks ago

Is that an African or a European sparrow?

[-] MrShankles@reddthat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago

Neither, it's a Swallow. Still unclear if it's African or European though

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[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago

They took the Panama Canal, obviously.

[-] sadicarnot@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

A swallow could grip it by the husk

[-] Revan343@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago

Read more here

Lol, I need to start doing that

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[-] match@pawb.social 49 points 2 weeks ago

they only think coconuts floated over on their own 500 years ago because austronesians are supernaturally invisible to white people

[-] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 weeks 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 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Someone in this thread needs to say who austronesians are

Edit:

The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.

[-] booly@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

They're basically the proto Pacific Islanders. It's believed that their civilizations all trace back to a group of people from the island of Taiwan/Formosa, who learned how to sail over the deep ocean and set up new communities, bringing chickens, pigs, taro, coconuts.

They settled modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, as far west as Madagascar, to Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and most of the other Pacific Islands, as far east as Easter Island. Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Guamese, etc., are all Austronesian. Most ethnic groups considered native to these islands trace back to Austronesian expansion.

There are shared linguistic and cultural ties that showed that they had recent comment ancestry, that has since been confirmed by DNA genealogy.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

Makes a lot more sense than ASTROnesians, as spelled above, which makes them sound like aliens. Which is silly, because everyone knows aliens only land in either densely populated metropolitan areas (NYC, Tokyo, etc) or in the desert near Area 51.

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[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 29 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

That's not what my partner says uwu

[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks 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 32 points 2 weeks ago

Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.

[-] SARGE@startrek.website 15 points 2 weeks ago
[-] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 10 points 2 weeks ago

Excuse you, this is MURICA, those are FREEDOM SWALLOWS 🦅🦅🦅

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[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

They went around the horn like a real man!

[-] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks 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.

[-] match@pawb.social 10 points 2 weeks ago
[-] Sergio@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 weeks ago

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...)

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[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I assumed one finally got lucky and got around the southern tip of Africa while headed west.

[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago

Oof, good point

Please do not disturb the migratory fruits

[-] Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago

This is nuts!

[-] Revan343@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago

Coconuts: the world's strangest migratory mammal

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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
1163 points (100.0% liked)

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