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No matter whether you believe in god or in or millennia of selective cultivation someone had to come up with the genius idea of making these things the way they are now, filled with seeds and covered with decorative patches of microscopic barbed needles.

Here is a quote of an instructables article on how to eat these things.

instructables wrote:There are a few ways to get the fruits off the cactus. You could wear thick gardening gloves, but the problem with that is that your gloves will then be covered with insidious hair-thorns that will attack you next time you touch them. I opt to use kitchen tongs that keep me at a safe distance and can be washed clean without ever touching my skin.

Why would anyone ever wish to create something like that ?

Some people just want to watch the world burn get poked by thorns!

Nids love em!

Take it from me, cactus beer is no bueno.

 Frazzled wrote:
Take it from me, cactus beer is no bueno.

But is it worse than no beer at all?

 Frazzled wrote:
Take it from me, cactus beer is no bueno.

Does it contain decorative patches of cacti needles / thorns ?

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Take it from me, cactus beer is no bueno.

Does it contain decorative patches of cacti needles / thorns ?

Yes, it is worse than no beer at all. Of course I don't drink beer. It gets in the way of my bourbon.

No it doesn't have needles in it. Its just blech.

You can however make a nice desert with the fruit IIRC.

 oldzoggy wrote:
No matter whether you believe in god or in or millennia of selective cultivation someone had to come up with the genius idea of making these things the way they are now, filled with seeds and covered with decorative patches of microscopic barbed needles.

Good defence?`Funny enough lots of how things have evolved has been making sure you don't get eaten

Thats sure how it might have started, but these things like all food crops have been cultivated and carefully selected on desired attributes for 1000's of years.

I've always wanted to try cactus fruit but sadly have not had the opportunity as of yet.

 oldzoggy wrote:


Why would anyone ever wish to create something like that ?

Well, when you're in an arid environment with not much food or water, you tend not to be too picky on what to eat. Not to mention that prickly pears tend to have a high water content, making it ideal for surviving in the desert.'
I had one of them, btw. It was kind of nice, actually. A bit awkward to eat, but it was juicy and had a curious flavor. Sort of apple like, I think.

I remember I had cactus gelato with agave nectar dribbled on it for dessert in Puerto Vallarta several years back and it was delicious!

I had some fruit years ago, tastes great.

I had it a couple of years ago. It tastes pretty good, but it's a major PITA to get at. Much like the pomegranate, it's not really worth the effort

It does seem very odd. Why should a cactus go to all the trouble of bearing fruit (which is presumably meant to entice animals to eat its seeds), and then cover the fruit in spikes (presumably to deter animals from eating it)? Very peculiar.

tneva82 wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
No matter whether you believe in god or in or millennia of selective cultivation someone had to come up with the genius idea of making these things the way they are now, filled with seeds and covered with decorative patches of microscopic barbed needles.

Good defence?`Funny enough lots of how things have evolved has been making sure you don't get eaten

Fruit generally wants to be eaten. That's how it gets far from the parent plant, fertilised, and propagates.
It could be argued to prevent the parent plant from being damaged while the valuable fruit grows, but then one would expect the needles to drop out once the fruit was ready.

They're delicious. I eat 'em from time to time, and love how juicy they are. Picking with tongs, as suggested, and then slicing them open on a plastic cutting board while keeping the fruit in place with a fork and then prying the skin off.

As for the fruit itself and the evolution of the plant, one should also take into account any sort of preferred consumer of the fruit that may have developed a relationship with the plant over evolutionary time. For example, fruits consistently eaten by animal X over time tended to be dispersed in such a way that they produced more successful offspring. I imagine birds would be among the best at this role, as they're small and can peck into the fruit between the patches of needles and theoretically travel greater distances to poop the seeds out. All just conjecture, but it sorta makes sense.

 Smacks wrote:
It does seem very odd. Why should a cactus go to all the trouble of bearing fruit (which is presumably meant to entice animals to eat its seeds), and then cover the fruit in spikes (presumably to deter animals from eating it)? Very peculiar.

Wild Guess (even though I could google it and find the actual answer I'm sure):


Perhaps it wants to be eaten by a particular kind of animal, that process and leaves the seeds around in the fashion the plant requires. So it gets a bunch of nasty ol' spikes that deters pretty much everything except that particular critter and/or critters, which are well suited to dealing with them.

 Chongara wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
It does seem very odd. Why should a cactus go to all the trouble of bearing fruit (which is presumably meant to entice animals to eat its seeds), and then cover the fruit in spikes (presumably to deter animals from eating it)? Very peculiar.

Wild Guess (even though I could google it and find the actual answer I'm sure):


Perhaps it wants to be eaten by a particular kind of animal, that process and leaves the seeds around in the fashion the plant requires. So it gets a bunch of nasty ol' spikes that deters pretty much everything except that particular critter and/or critters, which are well suited to dealing with them.

Also entirely possible that the animal in question went extinct before we were aware of its existence

 oldzoggy wrote:

Why would anyone ever wish to create something like that ?

No one did. Apparently birds are the main method of seed dispersal, according to the internet anyway.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

Why would anyone ever wish to create something like that ?

No one did. Apparently birds are the main method of seed dispersal, according to the internet anyway.

When you poop from the air you can get some distance to spread indigestible seeds that pretty much just pass harmlessly through a birds stomach, and plenty of things take advantage of things birds naturally don't get affected by so they can freely eat it.

Kinda like how spicy peppers came to be, the spiciness was supposed to turn away other animals but birds didn't feel the heat.. Of course it backfired a bit with humans, but they certainly propagated as a result.

evolution has no plan or goal, organisms just find a niche and fill it it's simply that way because it ensured it's continuation as a species.

hobojebus wrote:
evolution has no plan or goal, organisms just find a niche and fill it it's simply that way because it ensured it's continuation as a species.

Hence, Trump. Another prick, er, prickly organism that saw a niche and filled it. Sorry MODs, I had to go there.

Back OT, I'm assuming that the fruit also bears the buds and allows for pollination, yes?

hobojebus wrote:
evolution has no plan or goal, organisms just find a niche and fill it it's simply that way because it ensured it's continuation as a species.

Continuation of existence is a goal, no?

 Farseer Anath'lan wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
evolution has no plan or goal, organisms just find a niche and fill it it's simply that way because it ensured it's continuation as a species.

Continuation of existence is a goal, no?

Honestly after seeing how some parasites reproduce I am still baffled anything can evolved a niche as weird as going through two to five species just to reproduce.

 Farseer Anath'lan wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
evolution has no plan or goal, organisms just find a niche and fill it it's simply that way because it ensured it's continuation as a species.

Continuation of existence is a goal, no?

It might be a little misleading to say that continuation of existence is "the goal" of evolution. Selection is a natural force/phenomenon, not unlike gravity. A circular stone doesn't become round because it intends to be good at rolling, it just works out that way. When we ask ourselves why some stones seem to have rolled further than others, the answer is because they happen to be rounder, but the stone didn't plan it. Genes are a little like stones rolling through time, and since time is by definition a continuation, genes that are good at "continuing" obviously roll further through it.

However, there are parts of evolution, such as sexual selection, which do involve pressures deliberately applied by organisms, which could be thought of as goal driven. Though, how they ended up with such goals might be somewhat accidental.

It might also be worth mentioning that humans are sort of "hard-wired" to think in terms of purpose and meaning, and so our language tends to lend itself to discussing things in those terms. While that isn't "strictly" accurate when it comes to natural processes like evolution, I think it's perfectly acceptable to talk that way, because it's just easier. So long as people know that they are being poetic and not literal when they use words like "purpose" and "design", its okay.




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 malamis wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
It does seem very odd. Why should a cactus go to all the trouble of bearing fruit (which is presumably meant to entice animals to eat its seeds), and then cover the fruit in spikes (presumably to deter animals from eating it)? Very peculiar.

Wild Guess (even though I could google it and find the actual answer I'm sure):


Perhaps it wants to be eaten by a particular kind of animal, that process and leaves the seeds around in the fashion the plant requires. So it gets a bunch of nasty ol' spikes that deters pretty much everything except that particular critter and/or critters, which are well suited to dealing with them.

Also entirely possible that the animal in question went extinct before we were aware of its existence

Another possibility is that the spines growing on the fruit was just an unfortunate sideeffect of having spines generally, and the cactus never bothered to fix it because animals still ate the fruit in spite of them.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

Why would anyone ever wish to create something like that ?

No one did. Apparently birds are the main method of seed dispersal, according to the internet anyway.

In any case, nowadays they're planted just like any other crop.



This is from Sicily but you can see the same in most Med countries and, very especially, Morocco where it takes 4 times as much growing surface as in its native Mexico.

The rackets are also use to feed cattle since some spineless varieties have been developed.