The parasitic plant Balanophora fungosa, which lives in tropical forests, has always puzzled botanists with its appearance. It has neither green leaves nor roots of its own, and its inflorescences look more like bright cones or mushrooms. For a long time it was believed that the fruits of this plant simply fall to the ground under the force of gravity or are carried away by ants. However, research by the Japanese botanist Kenji Suetsugu (Kenji Suetsugu) of Kobe University, published in the journal Ecology, completely refuted these ideas.
By setting up nighttime time-lapse cameras on the Japanese island of Ishigaki, the scientist discovered that ants ignore the plant's fruits. The true "gardeners" of Balanophora fungosa turned out to be land hermit crabs of the species Coenobita brevimanus and Australian cockroaches (Periplaneta australasiae).
Attracted by the intense fermented scent of the ripened inflorescences, these nocturnal animals eagerly eat the fruits. The hermit crabs pinch off the fruits with their working claws and can completely strip a plant clean in a single night. The tiny seeds cling to their claws, shells and legs, setting off on a journey through the forest. The animals swallow some of the seeds whole, and after passing through their digestive tract, the seeds remain viable and emerge along with the droppings far from the parent plant.
This discovery became the first documented case of land hermit crabs acting as full-fledged seed dispersers (the endozoochory syndrome). The study proves that even the invertebrates and crustaceans we are accustomed to can play a key role in the survival of rare plant species, one that scientists had never even suspected before.
