Coco de Mer

The nut of the Coco de Mer palm holds the world's record as the largest seed-it's bigger than a basketball, and weighs around 60 pounds (27 kg). Just imagine getting conked in the head by one of these giants! The tree's French name means "coconut of the sea." The dried shells can float long distances and sailors once mistook them as mermaids' bottoms. People even thought they came from coconut trees growing on the ocean floor. But instead of the hard, white stuff we're used to eating, the Coco de Mer has a much more jelly-like flesh. The Coco de Mer palm grows only on the Seychelle Islands, where it remains a protected species.

Field Museum scientists have helped to catalog and safeguard the amazing plant and animal life unique to these islands. Specimens of Coco de Mer nuts reside in The Field Museum's collections, where their size provides an example of island gigantism-an evolutionary effect sometimes experienced by species living on isolated islands that have little competition and few predators.