Not as much as bananas, which are mostly sterile hybrids propagated by rhizomes. But avocados have definitely been selected to be much bigger, with a lot more pulp around the seed.
I’m afraid I don’t know much about how well different animals can handle them. It’s hard to find information about what animals disperse what fruit, in part because most fruit are very non-specific (in contrast to flowers which often have evolved for specific pollinators). The one more recent paper I’ve seen talking about dispersal by extinct animals was on a very different fruit, the bitter squashes of North America that people later bred into non-bitter varieties.
I don’t even pop the pit out as a separate step. After cutting in half, I just squish out the green stuff AND the pit into the bowl. Then I fish out the pit(s) and nibble off the green stuff before tossing them into the compost bag.
I used to do the hedgehog method, but it just seems like too much work. Unless you really want square green stuff.
I think the squish method results in better texture.
I don’t know about sloths but the black bears in my neighborhood are well known for their fondness for avocados. It’s extremely common to see them eating them around here:
Likely covered here already, but I remove the stone after cutting the avocado in half. Then, using my knife as a cleaver, I strike the now exposed stone, lodging the knife in the stone. Then I twist the knife with an unscrewing action that pops out the stone.
What it should look like before unscrewing the stone from the pulp.
The most delicious, rich, buttery avocados I’ve ever had were the maaassive ones grown in Jamaica who are bigger than softballs. They are called agricultural pears {locally pronounced “h’agricultural peers.”}
They evidently don’t ship well, so are only locally available, mon. They apparently won’t allow any trees to be grown off The Island, neither, not that I can blame them.
The worst, most boring, disappointing-est, and entirely flavor-free strawberries I ever had came from a roadside farm stand in the vicinity of Ontario, Coliforniyah. My then-BF put one in the palm of his hand and couldn’t even come near closing his fingers around it, they were so gigantic. They also looked mouth-wateringly gorgeous, which only exponentially increased our disappointment.
His mom had bought them on her way home from work, and she made appropriate Godzilla jokes about radiation and mutation before we tried them.
If you need to use any kind of force to get the stone out, the avocado isn’t ripe, if it is you can just flip the stone out with a table knife. No injury, simples. What are these people thinking?
True story: we once met my grandparents for a picnic at a state park midway between their house and ours, and grandma brought the food.
While slicing some ham for sandwiches, she paused, looked at her knife, then looked at me and my siblings and said, “I got this knife from a Guamanian woman. A friend of mine when your grandfather was stationed in Guam. She once used it to kill a Japanese soldier who was hiding in her house.” Then she nonchalantly continued making the sandwiches.
Of course we call it the “murder knife.” The murder knife remains in regular use in my sister’s kitchen; it was one of the more highly desired heirlooms from my grandparents’ estate.
The only part I don’t quite believe/understand is that the Guamanian woman would give such a knife away, and that it didn’t become a treasured heirloom in her own family. But I can imagine a variety of reasons why it might be that she’d give it away.
True story: Years ago when picnicking with a bunch of people at a remote beach, my friend asked me for my Swiss Army knife, to cut up an apple. She apparently had no lived experience with sharp knives. And I kept my knife sharp. She held the apple in one hand and cut through the apple toward her hand. (I know!!!) Yup, she cut into all four fingers. She said she never expected the knife to cut through the apple so easily. We were miles from the cabin we were all staying at, which itself was miles from anywhere…
I was wearing a muslin shirt/blouse I had designed and made myself, with pearl buttons from my grandmother’s button box; it was a favorite thing. We tore strips off the bottom of the shirt in the back, and bandaged her hand. Later on I pieced some other, similar fabric onto the shirt to make it whole again and continued to wear it, but it’s long worn out and gone. I still have the knife, but I don’t carry it, and it isn’t quite as sharp these days.
The worst, most boring, disappointing-est, and entirely flavor-free strawberries I ever had came from a roadside farm stand in the vicinity of Ontario, Coliforniyah. My then-BF put one in the palm of his hand and couldn’t even come near closing his fingers around it, they were so gigantic. They also looked mouth-wateringly gorgeous, which only exponentially increased our disappointment.
His mom had bought them on her way home from work, and she made appropriate Godzilla jokes about radiation and mutation before we tried them.
Like, totally. Oh. My. Gawd, dude. Friends introduced me to young women who sounded exactly like Moon Zappa’s Valley Girl parody. I met an astonishing number of phonies. And like, sooo many people were the type to hug you while stabbing you in the back.
The people I spent the most time with were very cool and very sweet, and were far from fake.
My BF told me he fell in love w/me so quickly because I’m real, and say what I think.
He helpfully taught me a phrase, which, when mastered, gave one a grip on the extreme Southern Coliforniyahn accent of the day. I’m pretty good at phonetically spelling stuff, but this one’s hard. I’ve done my best:
Ef you see Baub (Bob), tell him I’m pessed (pissed), ahnd Eyeh’m (I’m) goaing (going) to keck (kick) his ahss. (ass)
When I moved back to Detroit I’d lost the clipped, nasal Midwest vowels, and didn’t miss them in the least. I was often asked where I was from, which amused me, and them, too, when it was explained to them. I didn’t sound like Valley Girl, the vowels were just softer and broader. I was sad when they faded away after being back home for about a year.
LOLZ I fortunately never met anyone who sounded anything like this chap! I woulda burst out laughing right in his face, which would be sooo rude, dude.
