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SearchResearch Challenge (6/6/18): Seed dispersal mechanisms for giant seeds? (And search strategies)

I’m back!
Welcome to the new post-book SearchResearch. Just so you’ll know, it’s provisionally called The Joy of Finding Out.

A quick book update: I finished the first draft of the manuscript. Now comes the copyediting, approvals, publisher comments, figuring out the color pages, etc etc. One of my friends who’s an accomplished author said “Congratulations.. now the work begins!”

Ummm…. What was all that stuff I just did?

When this thing is all done, I’ll give you a bit of a breakdown in terms of effort–how much time was spent writing, how much time editing, etc.

Realistically, this book is probably a 2019 publication. (But I’m hoping for an earlier, limited release!) Stay tuned.

I know I promised you a breakdown of the survey results from last week, but I’ll get to that tomorrow. There were a LOT of insightful (and lengthy) comments–it’s a bit more than I can whip out in just an hour or so. So I’ll give you a new Challenge for this week, and give a summary of the survey tomorrow.


WHILE I was working on the book, the millenial’s favorite, avocado toast. Since I live in California, I usually just make my own avo-toast at home, which means I look at a lot of avocados.

As I was tossing one into the compost bin I started to wonder about the seeds and how the avocado seed is dispersed in its natural habitat. Since I used to live in Los Angeles, I’ve seen a lot of avocado trees. They get pretty big and can have a thousand avocados on their branches. But when ripe, they just plummet straight down. Let me tell you, it can get really messy down there.

They’re pretty easy to grow, but how does an avocado get around? I mean, are there forests of avocados??

That led to me today’s Challenge:

1. How are avocados dispersed? If they rely on just falling from the tree, that doesn’t seem to work well… so is the “natural” dispersal by animal? If so, WHAT animal would eat an avocado… and then be big enough to carry it somewhere and leave it behind in a new place?

2. Are there other plants with giant seeds (like the avocado’s) and how do THEY get dispersed?

3. In writing this post, I’ve been looking for an early illustration of an avocado. It’s kind of tricky. What’s a strategy for finding the earliest illustration of something? In our case, an avocado seed… but how about finding an early illustration of ANY thing?

Once you figure out the answer, let us know… AND be sure to tell us HOW you figured it out!

I’m curious to see what your “old illustration” strategies will be.

Search on! (And keep eating avocado toast. The avocado ranchers need your support.)

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