News Life

Fruit-eating fish does far-flung forestry

Species’ seed-dispersal skills go the distance

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

In the Amazon, Johnny Appleseed may be a fish.

TREE PLANTER A tambaqui, a kind of fruit-eating fish, turns out to carry seeds a respectable distance from their mother plants as the fish feasts in flooded Amazonian forests. Tino Strauss/Wikimedia Commons

When rivers in the Amazon Basin flood into surrounding forests and savannas, a fruit-eating fish called a tambaqui proves itself a champion at excreting seeds in distant new homes, says Jill T.