Free Republic

Viewers were left in stitches as a lion-tailed macaque repeatedly slapped a giant squirrel in a fight over an enormous jackfruit on last night's episode of BBC1's Primates. The 'marvellous' moment happened during a segment about the macaques living in the Western Ghats mountain range in India. It showed how lion-tailed macaques took advantage of the Malabar giant squirrel's sense of smell to locate ripe jackfruit and steal it from them. Using a surprisingly simple technique, the macaque simply batted the squirrel repeatedly on the nose to keep it away from the food.

Late last year, after 18 years of litigation, a senior government official in Kerala, south-west India was given a prison sentence after being convicted of theft. The object he stole was government property, and it was so large he had to have it cut up to get it home. A piece of art, perhaps? A precious metal? Actually, it was a 40-year-old jackfruit tree, and, once you’ve tasted its fruit, you begin to understand why he did it. To say the jackfruit is big is an understatement. It is the largest tree-borne fruit on the planet – it isn’t unusual...

It's not every fruit that gets its own international symposium. Then again, the jackfruit is not your typical fruit. It's got a distinctive, musky smell, and a flavor that some describe as like Juicy Fruit gum. It is the largest tree fruit in the world, capable of reaching 100 pounds. And it grows on the branches — and the trunks — of trees that can reach 30, 40, 50 feet. (Trunk-growing is a good thing because it reduces the odds of a jackfruit bopping you on the head.) Jackfruits are also a nutritional bonanza: high in protein, potassium and vitamin...