Nature

Some plants bribe ants into planting their seeds for them

Thousands of plant species attach a fatty, nutrient-rich packet called an elaiosome to their seeds, which ants find irresistible. Worker ants carry the whole seed back to the nest, eat the packet, and discard the intact seed in an underground midden — effectively planting it, safe from fire and seed-eating rodents, in soil already enriched with ant waste. The strategy, called myrmecochory, has evolved independently in plant families on almost every continent.

Andrew J. Lucky, E. S. Dixon & C. R. Wolf, Myrmecochory: An Ecosystem Service — Standard myrmecochory literature

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