Tag: plants

Stay Away From The World’s Most Dangerous Tree

By Anupum Pant

Background

Today we talk about Manchineel – An evil tree that is found in Florida, Caribbean and several other places around it. It holds the Guinness book of world record for the most dangerous tree, and you have a fair reason to stay at least ten feet away from it, if you ever go on a vacation to Florida, Caribbean or other nearby places.

What can it do?

  • Touch any part of this tree, its bark, leaves, fruits etc, and you’ll be left with serious blisters on your skin. The blisters will come with an excruciating pain that even after being treated by a doctor will continue to trouble you for several days. That’s not all.
  • If anything from this tree goes into your eyes, by anything I mean, even the rain water that touches the plant, you could end up with the kind of pain you’d have never experienced or could even make you go blind.
  • Swallowing a part of its little apple-like fruit will ensure that you get painful blisters on the internal walls of your mouth and throat. Try eating the complete, sweet smelling and pleasant tasting fruit and it will easily kill you. In fact in Spanish they call it manzanilla de la muerte; meaning – the little apple of death.
  • Try to get rid of it by breaking its branches or cutting the trunk and it will squirt its sap on your skin, inflicting you with the painful long-lasting blisters once again.
  • Try burning it down, while turning into ash, it will ensure that the smoke it exudes, makes you and others standing near it, go blind.

Is this tree any useful?

Yes. The Indians that used to live around the Caribbean used the sap derived from the plant to poison their darts and arrows. Also, they used the stump of this tree to tie up invaders. It killed them within a few hours.

How to avoid?

Pretty easy! The identified trees all around the region are marked with a red sign board that clearly tells you to stay away. So, do that.
In case you find a wild unmarked tree, stay away from anything that has leaves which look like shiny apple-tree-leaves and bears a deliciously sweet-smelling yellow/green little-apple like fruit.

Fun facts:

  • Despite having a bad name for its poisonous parts, there is an animal that can eat its fruit without experiencing any ill effects – A land crab found in the region. [Source]
  • In the Telugu language, Manchineel means something that can never be related to a tree which turns the water to poisoned water. Manchineel translates to – pure water or potable water in Telugu.

Crocodiles Do Not Die

By Anupum Pant

Technically some animals like Alligators, Flounders and Crocodiles do not die. Instead of aging biologically, they just keep on growing physically. But why do Crocodiles all over the world keep on dying?

Senescence

In reality, we do see them dying. So, it would be right to say that they have the potential to live forever. To understand this we’ll have to first look at the term – Senescence.

Senescence is a term used to indicate gradual deterioration of the body with age. In simpler words, you could call it ‘aging’. Specifically, weakening of muscles, lowering mobility, poor sensory acuity and age-related diseases are signs of an animal showing senescence. Most animals exhibit Senescence. So, as we get older our deteriorated life parameters increase our risk of dying – Humans exhibit Senescence; Crocodiles do not.

Negligible Senescence

But, here on Earth, living with us, are a few species that exhibit Negligible Senescence. That means, they show almost no signs of aging, or they are ‘biologically immortal’.  Animals like these only die due to diseases, accidents or predators.

In animals, sea urchins, lobsters, clams and hydras are some examples. Vertebrates like a few Tortoises, Turtles, Crocodiles, Alligators, Rougheye rock fish and Flounders have been not observed to have aged biologically. That is the reason we had a 255 year old tortoise in the Kolkata zoo till the year 2006.

Among trees, probably the best example for an individual would be one Methuselah tree, which has been living for 4800 years. Its exact whereabouts are kept a secret to save it from us. On the other hand, a colony of a single tree has been estimated to be around 80,000 years old. It is also the heaviest known organism.

Side note: Tardigrades survive extreme conditions using a technique called cryptobiosis. They can die and literally come back to life.

Back to Crocs

Crocodiles have no such thing as old age. A 7-year-old crocodile is as good as a 70-year-old one in terms of agility and other life parameters. Aging has no effect on them. Although they can’t die of natural aging, they also can’t live forever. Nature has a way of killing them. The way they die is out of starvation or if they contract a disease.

They keep growing throughout their lifespan and they require more and more food. So, as they keep getting older they need a lot more food. When that amount of food is unavailable, they die from starvation. That is the reason we don’t see 1000 year old crocodiles that are 50 feet long. Still, see what this hunter shot in Australia in the year 1957 – It was an 8.1 m (28 feet) long crocodile!

huge crocodile in australia

Even if making human beings biologically immortal is an extremely controversial area, it doesn’t stop scientists. Scientists love to study organisms that exhibit negligible senescence because they’d love to find out a way to halt the aging process in humans by mimicking their gene structures. Probably, in the near future, we’ll find a way to demonstrate limitless Telomere regenerative capacity like Planarian Flatworms in humans.

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