Forests with trees that walk and hunt

Yep, these trees really move to find the sun and maybe other things too

By Smartasaurus· 1 min read Wild

Deep in the Ecuadorian rainforest, there's a tree that locals swear actually walks

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The short version

Yep, these trees really move to find the sun and maybe other things too
Either way, the stilt roots are real and they are doing something strange.
A forest you thought was still is, on the long view, very slowly rearranging itself.

There's a tree in the Ecuadorian rainforest that locals swear moves a few centimetres each year, chasing the sunlight.

It's called Socratea exorrhiza — the walking palm. Instead of one buried trunk, its base splits into a cone of stilt roots that lift it half a metre off the forest floor. New roots grow on the sunny side. Old roots on the shaded side die back and rot away. Over months and years, the tree, in theory, drifts.

Botanists are split on whether this is real. A 1980 paper claimed walking palms can travel up to 20 metres in their lifetime. A 2005 study walked it back, arguing the roots are structural, not locomotive, and that the tree stays exactly where it sprouted. The argument has never fully resolved. Local Quechua and Sápara guides, who walk those forests every day, insist the trees move. Visiting biologists, who don't, mostly insist they don't.

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