It takes a whole day to travel from Ecuador’s capital, Quito, to the heart of the Unesco Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, some 100km to the southeast. The journey entails three hours by car to the edge of the forest, and then anywhere from seven to 15 hours by boat, mule and foot, mostly uphill and on a muddy road, to reach the interior. But the effort is worth it, considering you wind up in the middle of a pristine forest that houses a rather unusual find: walking palm trees.
Like the Ents from JRR Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings saga (only a bit slower), these trees actually move across the forest as the growth of new roots gradually relocates them, sometimes two or three centimetres per day. While some scientists debate whether these trees walk, Peter Vrsansky, a palaeobiologist from the Earth Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Bratisla, claims to have seen this phenomenon first hand.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20151207-ecuadors-mysterious-walking-trees
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