Baboon Tangerine: Animals Lead To Discovery Of New Fruit Variety

[Zephie]

JOHANNESBURG — When it comes to grabbing fruit off trees, baboons don't monkey around. Now their speed at gobbling up quickly ripening fruit has led to a discovery of what is believed to be a new type of tangerine.

South African farmer Alwyn van der Merwe said workers noticed several years ago that one of his tangerine trees was already stripped of fruit when the other trees were ready for picking. The same thing happened the next year, and the next. A farmworker finally solved the mystery when he saw baboons picking the tree clean. This one tree was making ripe tangerines three to four weeks ahead of all the others.

Van der Merwe said tests showed the fruit is sweeter and ripens faster. He produced more of the trees using grafts. His ALG Estates, a family citrus business north of Cape Town, will soon be exporting the tangerines, van der Merwe said. "There is a big market in the U.S.," he noted. "Especially when you're earlier."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/baboons-new-tangerine_n_808821.html

[niyad]

1. k and r

[Schema Thing]

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[xchrom]

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