Evolution has largely necessitated moms to be the primary caregivers – many grow babies in their belly, nurse them, and teach them about life. However, some dads, grandparents and even non-relatives do just as good a job! By Shatakshi Gawade.
The animal kingdom is a treasure trove of remarkable parents. From elephant moms who carry their babies in their belly for 22 months to sandgrouse dads who fly over 200 km. to bring water to chicks, parental care takes many forms.
Evolution has largely necessitated moms to be the primary caregivers – many species grow babies in their belly, nurse them, and teach them the ways of life. However, there are dads across the animal kingdom who do just as good a job, even among insects! The female giant water bug lays eggs on the wings of a male. He stops everything else to protect the eggs until they hatch. The male water bug carries the fertilised eggs on his back. This makes him more attractive to predators and is a burden when he is foraging for food, but he does his job.
Giant water bug dad carrying a load of eggs. Photo: Alok Kar/Sanctuary Photolibrary.
A poison dart frog dad has his work cut out for him. When a tadpole emerges, it crawls onto his back for a ride to a separate puddle, because they are cannibals! He then makes daily rounds, ensuring each tadpole is hydrated and has food. When the baby senses that dad is around, its brain lights up with dopamine. He cannot feed them on his own, though. When it wiggles like a puppy to indicate hunger, mom lays an unfertilised egg for it, like a protein shake. The tadpole also gets alkaloids from the eggs, making it toxic for predators.
Not all animals are as invested in only their offspring’s survival. The quokka, with its sweet smile, is quite dastardly from a human perspective! This Australian mammal is a marsupial – the mom carries the baby in a pouch on her front, like the kangaroo. When a predator threatens, the quokka relaxes its muscles, letting the baby slip out. It flails around on the ground, making distracting noises as mum gets away. Other macropods – the family the quokka belongs to – also throw their babies so that mom gets to live one more day, ensuring her survival and her future reproductive success.
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The quokka mom carries the baby in a pouch on her front. Photo: Donald Hobern/CC BY-3.0.
The Barn Owl, a beautiful bird and deadly hunter, can be a dangerous parent. Its chicks hatch in the order they are laid. If food is scarce, older chicks eat their younger siblings. The parent follows suit – if it is not able to hunt, it kills and eats its chicks.
Isn’t this strange? But, we must be careful not to attribute human characteristics or behaviour to these animals. The reason life on Earth exists is this very variation in how different species have evolved!
The Barn Owl may eat its chick in times of food scarcity. Photo: Reyan Sofi/Sanctuary Photolibrary.
Soft, full of gifts, like our second set of parents, grandparents mean the world to us, and even to wild animals. Among killer whales (orcas), granny knows best! Though females stop giving birth by 40, they continue to live into their 90s, helping their grandchildren and children. The oldest female in the pod leads migration. In times of food shortages, they are even more important as the group’s knowledge repository.
Wolves are fiercely territorial. Most important for the wolf pack’s survival is the presence of even just one very old member to use their knowledge about the landscape, their own pack, and the neighbouring pack to assess their chances of success. The pack with an old member wins 2.5 to 1 over the pack without, even when the pack is outnumbered. Such packs can remain dominant and stable over many years. For instance, the Mollie’s pack reigned for 21 years in central Yellowstone National Park!
Young orcas benefit from the wisdom of older orca grannies. Photo: Rolf Kallman/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Geoffrey Hinton, often called the ‘Godfather of Artificial Intelligence’, has raised concerns about AI’s risks to humanity. He suggests rather than controlling it through dominance, we could design it with “maternal instincts” – encouraging models to genuinely care about human well-being as they grow more intelligent.
Strawberry poison dart frog dad carrying a tadpole on his back. Photo: Andy Kraemer/CC BY-NC-2.0.
Caregivers of all kinds protect the next generation. The bottom line is survival! Even the ‘bad’ parents ensure the fittest survive the vagaries of nature, and ecosystems remain enriched. There is so much to learn from the animal kingdom!
Shatakshi is a Senior Editor at Sanctuary Asia. She met endless wild creatures and compassionate people in her books in school, and now takes every opportunity to meet them in person through her work!
