Eighty million years ago - give or take a few centuries - a
good mother watched over her little ones while dad bravely
defended the nest and tracked down the family's dinner. A
typical cozy domestic scene, except that the mother in
question is a three-ton dinosaur known as maiasaura - "good
mother lizard."
The parenting styles of our prehistoric pals is still a hotly
debated issue among today's dinosaur experts. Not everyone
believes the maiasura was well named. But whether mom nurtured
and protected her young or left them to hatch on their own
into the brave new Jurassic world, we're sure to find some
modern-day critters practicing the same child-care methods
today.
Bringing up baby in the animal kingdom takes many forms, from
the sea turtles who hatch into a hostile world and immediately
launch into a race for their lives to the sea to primates who
keep close ties with their parents right through adolescence.
There are no bad parents in the animal kingdom, according to
naturalist Janine Benyus (Beastly Behaviors) . . . but
some
aren't exactly candidates for parent of the year.
Take the elephant seal. Life is no beach for these pups.
Infancy is a delicate balance between gorging themselves on as
much of mother's milk as they can snatch and dodging the
enormous bull seals who rampage through the densely populated
beach communities, oblivious to all but challenging males.
More than a few hapless pups are crushed under the weight of
the charging contestants. Mother's milk runs out in about
three weeks, and the youngsters are on their own.
In contrast, avian parents are generally fiercely protective
of the nest. Mothers sometimes distract predators by running
away from the nest, and all the adults in a large bird colony
will surround intruders in a shrieking, angry flurry of beaks
and feathers guaranteed to scare off all but the most
foolhardy. "Imprinting" is a popular bird behavior that
helps
keep potentially wayward hatchling on track. They simply
imprint on the first thing they see as they break out of their
shells - usually the mother bird - and follow it everywhere.
Dad often lends a wing or two to the domestic routines,
rounding up tasty worms, warming the eggs while mom takes a
break, and educating the little ones in the ways of the world.
Community day care arrangements are fairly common in a number
of species - flamingos, penguins, giraffes, dolphins, and even
crocodiles, to name a few. Newborn dolphins travel with their
mothers in such tight formation they look like one animal to
predators. Close relatives often relieve the mother from her
intense childcare chores, and the young learn to interact by
playing together in these watery nurseries. The kids are
weaned at 18 months, but they frequently hang around home for
up to six years before striking out on their own.
Here are a few snapshots of animal family life:
Naturalist Cynthia Moss has spent years observing elephants.
All family members in their social groups help educate the
youngster, creating a warm environment with lots of contact,
encouragement, and protection. Extended families provide
plenty of opportunity to learn through play, direction, and
imitation. The young females, who seem to be very attracted to
the babies, spend a lot of time taking care of them. Cynthia
Moss describes one dramatic example of this nurturing
behavior, known as "allomothering," in a young female
elephant, Enid, with the crippled calf (Ely) of the group's
matriarch:
"She would not leave him, and helped take care of him,
and he
recovered, miraculously. That bond between Enid and Ely
remains to this day. She follows him around, she stands over
him when he's sleeping, she goes after him if he wanders off
and brings him back, and if he cries out in a distress call,
it's always Enid who comes." [Wildlife Conservation,
March/April 1993]
A family of shrews out for a stroll is a strange sight. With
the mother at the head of the line, each baby shrew latches
its teeth onto the tail of the sibling in front, forming a
snake-like caravan that scurries along the ground, breaks up
for feeding and exploring, and reassembles at the slightest
hint of danger.
Roger Caras describes the irrepressible mothering instincts
of
his bloodhound, Trinity, in A Dog Is Listening: "When
her
puppies arrived she was attentive and always showed deep
concern for their welfare. . . . [E]ven when those two puppies
were as big as she was . . . she worried about them day and
night. If they tussled and made squealing noises she flew to
them and examined them for signs of injury. . . . She listened
for the slightest sound of distress. It was an amazing display
of an instinctive pattern that wouldn't turn off."
Ginny, now famous as the Dog who Rescues Cats, may look
small
but she has a heart big enough to encompass all of felinedom
and a sizable portion of the human species, too. When she'd
managed to fill her human partner, Philip Gonzalez's apartment
with abandoned and injured cats, she pulled his loyal friend,
Sheila, into the rescue operation.
Literally hundreds of homeless and abused cats owe at least
one of their 9 lives to Ginny and her human crew. Amazingly,
even the wildest of the street cats seem to intuitively trust
Ginny. They often emerged from their hiding places when she
made her rounds and followed her down the street as she sought
out the wounded and helped Philip and Sheila feed the
starving. No biological mother has ever watched over her
children with more tender, loving care than Ginny.
Koko, the famous "talking" gorilla - the first non-human
primate to learn human sign language - recently made history
again as the first English-speaking gorilla to go on-line in a
live Internet chat group. But Koko is also well-known for her
fondness for kittens who she takes care of in much the same
way as a mother gorilla cares for her babies. Gorilla mothers
are characteristically patient, affectionate, and playful with
their offspring.
When her first kitten, All Ball, was killed by a car, Koko
cried and mourned her loss for months. But eventually she
requested another kitten. The companion she chose looked
remarkably like All Ball, a small tail-less gray cat.
Today, according to her on-line interview, one of the things
Koko enjoys most is playing with her current feline companion,
Smoke.
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