A strange animal helps a strange plant

Scientists have discovered why the roots of a curious plant that grows in only one place in the world never touch the ground.

Zamia pseudoparasitica is a plant that is only present in western Panama. It belongs to an ancient family of plants that includes species that can live for up to 1000 years. Plants of this family resemble palms and ferns, but are not. This particular plant differs from its congeners. It’s the only one that doesn’t grow out of the ground, but hangs – clinging to its roots – in other plants and trees, about 7 to 20 meters above the ground.

How does that plant survive up there in those treetops? How does it spread its seeds? To answer these questions, scientists set out to collect samples from the rainforest. They also set up game cameras to see what animals visited the plant and found that only one visitor had actually taken the seeds: Gabbi’s slender bear, a small nocturnal lemur-like animal with a long, bushy tail.

Researchers suspect that the slender bear takes the seeds from burrows in trees or from so-called seed banks and therefore the plant grows in the upper layer of the rainforest. To make sure, the researchers now want to tag and track the seeds.

Read more: The mystery of the dispersal of an unusual Panamanian plant†