Banana! Even the name sounds silly. But, I suppose when you’re a berry… that grows on a tree… built like a cucumber… colored red, green, purple or yellow… that everything wants to eat… a silly name would be the least of your worries!
Around these parts, almost everyone loves a banana, although I’m not so sure about the lions and the leopards and I’ve never personally seen a hyena or a rhino eat one? But hey, that leaves more for the rest of us!
M and I and every monkey, baboon, bush baby, banded mongoose, hippo, leopard tortoise, giraffe, bushbuck, duiker, warthog and hinged tortoise around here absolutely adore bananas! And the birds-riot when we bring out the fruit. If the banana is missing, it has been known to cause “hurt feelings” and the “sulks.”
In the case of the yellow-billed hornbills, it was “no-speaks” for over two days with the red-billed hornbills, who don’t even eat fruit!
Bananas were introduced early into Africa from Southeast Asia and Madagascar by early Austronesian sailors during the first to sixth centuries AD, so they’ve been around a while.
Early Portuguese explorers would have spread them around the continent from West Africa and were later responsible for distributing them as far as the Caribbean.
There’s even a Legend – although it’s actually a true, verifiable story! All about a man who survived on bananas as his only food for some three months… When he made it back to civilization, he had lost over sixty kgs and perfectly fit. With no fat and loads of vitamins and minerals, bananas are truly one of Africa’s super foods.
We haven’t told the starlings that they can get snacks anywhere else. They may go off to look and then where would we be, without competition for the Louries (Go-Away Birds), the Barbets, the Bulbuls, or the Turacos?