The large, sweet strawberries that we love to buy at the markets in the summer aren’t the result of a scientific experiment, but of the spread of bird droppings.

About 300 years ago, a French spy went to Chile. During his trip, he came across very large strawberries. In Europe, this berry was quite small and looked more like a wild strawberry. So he decided to give a present to Louis XIV and brought him a couple of bushes of his favorite berry. But the problem was that he chose male plants that couldn’t be intercrossed with other types of strawberries.

Luckily, about half a century later, farmers noticed some similarities between this type of strawberry and the other types that were brought from North America. They planted them close to each other and got a bountiful harvest of large and sweet berries. It turns out that this strawberry hybrid was also able to fertilize itself. The scientists later found out that this hybrid had already existed, but made it to North and South America thanks to bird droppings and turned into 2 different types of strawberries.