大象传媒

Western lowland gorillas eat the same kind of fruit as elephants, so elephant paths in the forest are like signposts to food for them. They sit happily in the trees feeding on ripe fruits as elephants pass underneath, but there is one type of fruit that the gorillas can't get to. Omphalocarpum fruits are encased in a tough shell, making them virtually impossible to crack. Elephants have the perfect tool for the job, using their tusks to break through the shells to reach the fruit inside. They devour everything, but the seeds pass through their digestive systems unharmed, and are deposited along the paths via their dung, creating avenues of their favourite fruit trees. Where there is a lot of elephant activity, clearings appear in the forest. Here sedges and grasses can take hold, which are fundamental to the gorilla's diet. These great apes would find life much harder without the elephants, but the relationship isn't an amicable one - the elephants don't like other animals sharing the clearings they created.