{"id":664964,"date":"2026-08-31T09:47:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T09:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/664964\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T09:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T09:47:30","slug":"hermit-crabs-and-cockroaches-are-acting-as-gardeners-for-a-parasitic-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/664964\/","title":{"rendered":"Hermit crabs and cockroaches are acting as gardeners for a parasitic plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"-3\"<\/a>Hermit crab. Image via Wiki Commons.<\/p>\n

In the humid, coastal forests of Japan\u2019s Ishigaki Island, near Okinawa, a parasitic plant relies on some unusual allies to spread its seeds: land hermit crabs and cockroaches, according to a recent\u00a0study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Balanophora fungosa is already an unusual plant. It doesn\u2019t photosynthesize, instead stealing nutrients from the roots of other plants. Most of it remains underground, with only its fleshy reproductive structures emerging above the forest floor. These can look more like mushrooms than plants.<\/p>\n

Previously, scientists have suggested that gravity might be helping disperse those seeds. But in the latest study, researchers found that on Ishigaki, the seeds are primarily dispersed by the land hermit crab (Coenobita brevimanus) and the Australian cockroach (Periplaneta australasiae).<\/p>\n

Crabs, cockroaches, and fungi<\/p>\n

Initially, study author Kenji Suetsugu, a professor of biodiversity and ecology at Kobe University, Japan, told Mongabay by email that he expected ants to be the primary dispersers, due to the plant\u2019s detachable fruit layer. To test this, he conducted \u201cexclusion experiments\u201d by covering some plants with mesh nets that allowed tiny ants inside but kept larger animals out. However, the fruits inside these ant-only nets went completely untouched. So Suetsugu set up a waterproof digital camera about 20 centimeters (8 inches) from the plants.<\/p>\n

Programmed to snap photos every 50 seconds, the camera compiled 6,427 images over nearly 89 hours of monitoring. This time-lapse photography captured land hermit crabs and cockroaches aggregating under the cover of night to devour the fruits. \u201cThe biggest surprise was the identity of the main seed disperser,\u201d Suetsugu said.<\/p>\n

While feeding, hermit crabs carried an average of 86 fruits externally on their claws. They also ingested and defecated numerous intact seeds, some of which remained viable after passing through their digestive tracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence that land hermit crabs can function as both external and internal seed dispersers,\u201d Suetsugu said. \u201cThis expands the range of ecological roles known for these animals and, more broadly, adds to growing evidence that small-bodied invertebrates can make meaningful contributions to seed dispersal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian cockroach also defecated seeds of fungus root, but they excreted fewer intact seeds than the hermit crabs. Both creatures are likely drawn to the fungus root by its smell, as mature fruits\u00a0release a fermented odor that attracts the foraging animals.<\/p>\n

\u00d7<\/p>\n

Thank you! One more thing…<\/p>\n

Please check your inbox and confirm your subscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeed-dispersal research has traditionally focused heavily on birds and mammals,\u201d Suetsugu said. \u201cOur findings suggest that this can leave important interactions unnoticed, particularly on shaded forest floors and on islands, where abundant ground-dwelling invertebrates may provide dispersal services that are easy to miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relationship may be even more effective than it first appears. Both hermit crabs and cockroaches swallowed the fruits and later passed intact, still-viable seeds in their feces. And because land hermit crabs can travel much farther than the distances directly observed in the experiment, they could potentially carry these microscopic seeds tens of metres through the forest. For a plant that spends most of its life hidden underground, parasitizing the roots of other plants, these unlikely \u201cgardeners\u201d may be crucial to helping the next generation find somewhere new to grow.<\/p>\n

He added that for him, \u201cthe broader lesson is that familiar animals can have ecological roles that remain hidden simply because nobody has watched them closely enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery is a reminder that seed dispersal is often far messier than the textbook image of berries carried by birds or burrs caught in fur. In tropical forests<\/a> especially, tiny and easily overlooked animals may be doing a substantial share of the work. For Balanophora fungosa, survival depends not on one elegant partnership, but on a whole cast of unlikely helpers \u2014 ants, cockroaches and hermit crabs \u2014 each contributing a different piece of the plant\u2019s reproductive cycle.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Mongabay<\/a>. Minor edits have been made to it.<\/p>\n


\n \"Add
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Follow
\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hermit crab. Image via Wiki Commons. In the humid, coastal forests of Japan\u2019s Ishigaki Island, near Okinawa, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,41303,280882,19,17,133],"class_list":["post-664964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-fungus","tag-hermit-crab","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117189493784858831","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}