NATURAL 

 HISnORY 



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Naliir,}' Hislnry (ISSN 0028-0712) is published monlhly by 

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Breadfruit— Puerto Rican Style 



In "A Fruit Freely Chosen" ("A Matter 

 of Taste," September 1993), Raymond 

 Sokolov explores the ways breadfruit is 

 prepared and eaten in the British and 

 French islands of the Caribbean. He does 

 not mention, however, the use of this fruit 

 in Spanish-speaking islands. 



Breadfruit trees can be found all over 

 Puerto Rico. Panapen, or pana, as we 

 Puerto Ricans call breadfruit, is usually 

 cooked while still green. The skin is re- 

 moved and the flesh cut into trapezoid- 

 shaped pieces and boiled until tender The 

 taste is slightly sweeter than a potato's. 

 The boiled pana can also be mashed and a 

 little flour added to make pasteles — pies 

 filled with stewed beef, pork, or chicken. 

 Puerto Ricans also love tostones de 

 pana — fried breadfruit sticks, but my per- 

 sonal high point in breadfruit came while I 

 was camping on a beach on the island of 

 Culebra, off the "main island" of Puerto 

 Rico. As the sun set on the horizon, a fish- 

 erman brought to my tent some baked 

 balls of breadfruit stuffed with lobster 

 meat. Every bite was heaven. 



Miguel Buxeda 

 Miami, Florida 



Defensive Snoring Defended 



Although Roger L. Welsch does not 

 mention me by name, I am the paleoan- 

 thropologist whose hypothesis on human 

 snoring is the butt of his September 1993 

 column, "For Immediate Release." As a 

 rancher in northwest Wyoming for the past 

 eighteen years, I appreciate the barnyard 

 humor. One correction needs to be made, 

 however: Welsch got the wrong idea when 

 the American Anthropological Associa- 

 tion indicated in their press release fliat I 

 was affiUated with the Institute of Human 

 Origins. In fact, I have only been con- 

 nected via friendship, fieldwork, confer- 

 ence attendance, and contributions. 



Maybe the feUas at Slick's tavern would 

 like to know that snoring (not to be con- 

 fused with sleep apnea, which is patholog- 

 ical in nature) is brought on by hormones 

 (predominantly male). And although 

 many people do laugh when they hear my 

 hypothesis — that snoring protected our 



forebears by warning away predators — 

 they usually come around to my way of 

 thinking when they see how the medical 

 facts fit with the paleoanthropological, an- 

 thropological, and primatological data I 

 have collected. As to flatulence in mam- 

 mals, they all do it and all are capable of 

 being audible. Unlike snoring, flatulence 

 is equally a malady of flie young. (If a 

 child snores, this indicates a pathology; 

 one must reach physical maturity with an 

 age-softened palate in order to snore prop- 

 erly and keep the beasties at bay.) 



Carol Andersen Travis 

 Jackson, Wyoming 



Camouflage Is Relative 



I do beUeve that Simon D. Pollard ("Lit- 

 tle Murders," October 1993) has fallen 

 prey to an old, untested assumption about 

 cryptic arthropods. He states that the abil- 

 ity of a female crab spider to match flower 

 color "makes her a formidable predator of 

 pollinating insects and affords her some 

 protection from becoming a victim her- 

 self." Vertebrate predators such as birds 

 probably see flower colors as we do, so a 

 color-matched spider may be missed. But 

 bees, one of the largest pools of prey for 

 the spider, see best on the ultraviolet end 

 of the spectrum. They are therefore drawn 

 to many otherwise plain-looking flowers, 

 whose "hidden" patterns, called nectar 

 guides, are visible only to ultraviolet-sen- 

 sitive eyes. (We humans can see them only 

 with the help of an ultraviolet lamp or with 

 special lenses.) Tom Eisner and coOeagues 

 observed in 1969 {Science, vol. 166, pp. 

 1 172-74) that crab spiders, cryptic to us in 

 "normal" light, are conspicuous to crea- 

 tures with ultraviolet vision. 



Thus, crab spiders and similar flower- 

 dwelling arthropods may be invisible to 

 predators such as birds and lizards, but 

 they are easily seen by many prey. The 

 most likely evolutionary explanation for 

 this (if there is one) is that visual predators, 

 and not improved hunting success, have 

 selected for crypsis. We need to remember 

 that safety, like beauty, resides in the eye 

 of the beholder. 



Jack C. Schultz 

 Julian, Pennsylvania 



2 Natural History 1/94 



