Chocolate lowland climate in the narrow band of latitudes where cacao is grown (20 degrees north and south of the equator), the commercial company Mars, Incorporated and the University of California, Berkeley are conducting genomic research in 2017–18 to improve the survivability of cacao plants in hot climates. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, the dried and fermented seeds of the cacao tree ("Theobroma cacao"), a small, 4–8 m tall (15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Recent genetic studies suggest the most common genotype of the plant originated in the Amazon basin and
Maria Cacao specific variant of this new element of the myth was reported in Cagayan de Oro in the aftermath of Typhoon Sendong (Tropical Storm Washi), when there were reported sightings of a boat with a woman at the helm traveling along the river and offering to pick up passengers. These rumors were accompanied by a warning not to accept invitations to board the boat, because the woman was supposedly Maria Cacao "collecting souls for the next world." In his regular newspaper column, anthropologist Michael Tan noted that this "soul harvester" function wasn't part of the prototypical myth, and associated the evolution