The potato is one of the world's food staples, first cultivated thousands of years ago in the Andes region of South America before spreading globally from the 16th century. But despite its importance to humankind,

The evolutionary event led to the formation of the tuber, which is the swollen and edible underground root of certain plants, such as potatoes and yams. To reach these conclusions, Chinese researchers analyzed 450 genomes -- the complete set of an organism’s DNA -- from human-grown potatoes and 56 of the wild potato species.

Modern potatoes came from an ancient mix of tomato and Etuberosum plants. The mix created tubers, letting potatoes store food underground.