rock, a fallen tree branch, or a buttress root. It is constantly interested in its caches and often digs up the seeds to rebury them elsewhere. One agouti will commonly rob the cache of another, transporting the seeds to new locations, and seeds can be transported sizeable distances in this manner. The behaviour is known as scatter-hoarding. Astrocaryum are advantageous to agoutis, because the seeds do not germinate quickly, allowing them to keep the seeds for lean times. They appear to preferentially store seeds with a long shelf-life, consuming those that germinate quickly first. The agoutis have other advantages for palms besides dispersal. Hiding the seeds in caches makes it harder for seed predators to find the seeds, both mammals and insects, and helps prevent the death of seeds and seedlings. Collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) are particularly destructive. These animals travel in large groups through the forest, trampling young plants, consuming fruit and seeds found on the ground, raiding agouti caches, and uprooting seedlings in order to feed on the attached seed. The seeds do not pass through the digestive systems of peccaries intact (agoutis also crush the seeds before ingesting them). Cached seeds are harder for the peccaries to find, and they may pass through an area a number of times without discovering a cache. Other animals which eat the seeds are squirrels and small rodents, specifically the spiny rat Proechimys semispinosus and the spiny pocket mouse Heteromys desmarestianus. Proechimys semispinosus is known to scatter-hoard Astrocaryum as well, and are very common animals, but field observations and camera traps found that the mammals interacting with the palm seeds on the forest floor were overwhelmingly peccaries and agoutis. Seeds may also suffer infestation from insects, primarily beetle species. Scolytine beetles bore small holes into the seed coat (endocarp) to get inside, while bruchid beetles bore large holes. Seed-boring bark beetles Coccotrypes were found to infest a high percentage of the seeds in Costa Rica. These are small (approximately 1mm) beetles which bore holes through the endocarp, and into the endosperm of the palm seeds. Non-hoarded seeds suffer significantly higher levels of infestation by Coccotrypes. Uses The endosperm of the large seeds tastes pleasantly like coconut, and the fruits are sometimes harvested for this in Costa Rica. According to a Kew website it has local traditional medicinal uses in Colombia, but it does not occur in Colombia. Conservation Although it is