The strangler fig has one of the wildest life stories of any tree in the rainforest! It starts out as a tiny seed that a bird or a monkey drops high up in the branches of another tree. The little seed sprouts way up there in the canopy, and then it sends long, skinny roots all the way down to the ground, sometimes dropping more than a hundred feet! As the fig grows bigger and bigger over many years, its roots wrap tighter and tighter around the first tree, almost like a giant woody cage. The strangler fig lives in tropical rainforests all around the world.
Eventually, the fig’s roots get so thick and tangled that the tree inside cannot grow anymore, and it slowly dies and rots away. When the original tree is completely gone, the strangler fig is left standing on its own with a hollow center, like a tree with a secret room inside! Animals like owls, bats, and snakes sometimes live inside these cool hollow spaces. Strangler figs are also super important to the rainforest because they make fruit all year long, feeding hundreds of different animals including monkeys, parrots, and fruit bats. Without strangler figs, many rainforest animals would not have enough food to survive!
