Invertebrates and other exotic animals. They will die for their children: the most caring mothers among animals (photo) The most caring mothers

Maternal instinct is inherent not only in people, but also in animals. Moreover, it has nothing to do with kindness or a sense of responsibility. Prudent nature “awarded” the entire female half with this quality solely so that the cubs could survive until they became stronger and could take care of themselves and get food on their own. Everyone knows very well how a person cares for his child. But little is known about the animal maternal instinct.

Female orangutans are considered the most caring. They raise their young for about 10 years: they teach them how to get food, distinguish edible grass from poisonous grass, build a nest, and protect themselves from rain.

Females also behave interestingly polar bear. They plan their pregnancy in advance, absorbing unrealistic quantities of seal fat and digging a larger den. As a result, female bears gain up to 200 kg excess weight and only after that they become pregnant. But after giving birth, young mothers go on a forced diet: they for a long time The cubs are fed milk, without being able to rise to the surface and eat.

Female killer whales cannot be denied vigilance. The fact is that newborn dolphins cannot sleep for a month after their birth. Their mothers have to adhere to the same schedule in order to be able to monitor their restless offspring and protect the cubs from numerous enemies in time.

The most ungrateful cubs are considered to be the children of the spider Amaurobius ferox. At a time, the female lays up to 100 eggs, of which only half hatch. Newborn baby spiders first eat the unhatched eggs and then their mother. What is surprising is that the female not only does not resist, but also voluntarily feeds herself to the cubs.

Strangely enough, the role of mother in seahorses is assigned to the father of the family. The female simply drops the eggs into her partner’s pouch, and he carefully carries the future offspring for 3 months. After the seahorses hatch, the same father continues to care for them. Children do not leave their parent's bags and even as adults they often hide in it from enemies.

We can continue to describe examples of the manifestation of maternal instinct in animals ad infinitum. One thing is clear: they, just like people, look forward to replenishment, take care of the kids, and encourage them in every possible way.

Often people should learn how to care from our little brothers. Animals protect their children and give them love and affection. Let's look at those animals who always do this.

Mother elephants, for example, adopt someone else's child if they see that his mother is not taking good care of him. All female elephants do this, and it deserves respect.

Lions never leave children when they are walking in the first days of life.

When it’s hot outside, the hippopotamus begins to secrete special protective milk for the baby, which has different properties and is reddish in color.

Baby squirrels are born small and hairless, so the squirrel creates a “coat” of moss for them during its absence.

And armadillos can actually “stop” pregnancy for up to 2 years! This happens if conditions are not favorable for childbirth and upbringing. Additionally, armadillos only give birth to babies of one sex. If a female begins to give birth to sons, she will continue to give birth to them until her death.

Otter babies are born blind. At first, while they are unable to take care of themselves, she catches them fish, feeds them with milk and takes care of them in every possible way.

Giraffe children are record holders in terms of rapid growth. An hour after birth, the giraffe can already walk, and after 6 hours it feeds on grass and runs around the meadow.

Female crocodiles can carry their babies in their mouths or on their heads to prevent their fathers from eating them in a fit of hunger.

The swans create a “house” for small children, in which the little ones ride with their mother.
In a fox family, the male fox always helps raise the small children. He gets food, and the fox sits with the newborns.

Mom is the most important word in the whole world. It is impossible to convey the depth of connection between a mother and her baby that occurs at the moment of birth small miracle and does not end throughout life. There is nothing more perfect than the love of a mother for her child, and mothers from the animal kingdom are no exception. We present to your attention the TOP 10 mothers who do their best to take care of their children and make many sacrifices for them.

10. ELEPHANT

10th place on our list goes to the mother who gives birth to the largest babies among land animals - weighing an average of 100 kilograms. (Can you imagine a diaper for these babies?) The females deserve a reward for heroically enduring a 22-month pregnancy. A baby elephant is born blind and therefore has to rely entirely on its trunk to navigate in space. Fortunately, these animals live in a matriarchal society where females are in charge. As soon as a baby is born, other “ladies” of the herd can come to his aid at any time, this applies to grandmothers, sisters, aunts or other relatives. They take an active part in all aspects of raising the baby elephant. The eldest of the females has every right to teach the youngest how to raise her own baby and does not tolerate objections. Such a number of caring nannies provides the baby with reliable support from birth and helps him get comfortable in the wild world.

9. KOALA

Never agree to have lunch with a female koala, as the price is very high - your life. The koala's menu is quite monotonous and consists of eucalyptus leaves, which are very poisonous. Digestive system this person can withstand this dangerous food, thanks to the intestines, which are coated with special bacteria that can detoxify hazardous substances. Baby koalas are not born with these super powers; moreover, these babies lack ears, eyes and fur. But caring mommy, as always, comes to the aid of her children, she feeds them with her feces. (Agree, this is a disgusting method. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything better for these poor kids). After birth, koala babies spend about six months in their mother's pouch. In it they receive precious mother's milk. During this period, the cubs develop all the necessary body parts that are necessary for life. adult life. While these children are sitting in the bag, the mother is not wasting time - she is sleeping. And this sleep takes about 22 hours a day, and this is almost 90 percent of their entire life.

A female alligator reaches sexual maturity on average at the age of three years. Its nest is a pile of rotting vegetation, also called compost. Thanks to the production of heat during the process of rotting vegetation, the female frees herself from such a boring task as incubating eggs. The incubation period is two months, and the temperature in the nest is quite high. If it is below 31 degrees Celsius, then a female will hatch, and if it is above 32 degrees, there will be a male. After the babies are born, mothers take them into their jaws and protect them, and also help them get used to the water, where they spend the first year of life. At this time, their diet consists of fish, insects, snails and crustaceans. Once they reach one year old, alligator babies can take care of themselves.

7. POLAR BEAR

The male is king only for one night. This Casanova, after mating, becomes cold and indifferent to the female, leaving her alone during pregnancy. The she-bear is forced to get her own food because she needs to double her weight. If she does not do this, then during pregnancy, her body will absorb the fetus. Sounds like something out of science fiction? Unfortunately it's true. This mother digs a den during pregnancy and childbirth, most often in snowdrifts, then goes into hibernation, during which she does not eat and may even oversleep the moment the baby is born. Can you imagine this? The cubs are born blind and toothless, but very cute. They remain with their mother for only two years, until they reach maturity.

6. CHEETHAH

Patience plays important role in life, especially for the mother cheetah. The female usually raises 4-6 cubs. But these babies lack the innate survival instinct. And therefore, the mother is entrusted with this difficult task - to teach her children the rules of life in wildlife. She shows how to hunt prey and avoid other predators. This educational work takes about two years. During this time, children must learn to survive on their own. As soon as they are ready to enter the adult world, their mother leaves them and creates new family. Males remain in the group for the rest of their lives, but females leave their brothers after about six months. Females, as a rule, are loners and avoid each other's company. Oh, these ladies just can't get along!

5. ORANGUTAN

The female ga is a highly intelligent animal whose main goal is motherhood. She spends almost her entire life high in the trees. This female is engaged in building a new nest every day, and it takes her no more than five minutes to do it all. Main building materials in this simple matter, branches and leaves protrude. She does not let her kids go until they reach the age of 6-7 years, this is the longest dependence of any animal on Earth. The main goal Most males mate, after which they leave. Male cubs do not lag behind their adult relatives and try to break away from their mothers more often than their sisters, who stay with their mother and adopt her experience in raising offspring.

Birds with this rare name, Sulawesi Kala, live on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. They use holes in trees as their nests. The eggs of these birds are favorite treat monitor lizards Therefore, to protect their future babies, kalao are forced to reduce the entrance to the nest. The best remedy in this case, these birds’ own feces are used. The female Sulawesi kala kalao remains in the nest throughout the eggs' entire two-month incubation period. She is forced to ignore hunger to her own detriment. (Although, it can be assumed that the smell from her method of protecting nests can kill anyone's appetite). These are maternal sacrifices.

Female elephant seal acts as a very responsible mother. Her weight reaches 770 kilograms, however, this is small compared to the weight of males, which are usually four times her size. Once pregnant, this mom is expected to gain a lot of extra weight. The gestation period lasts 11 months. However, after the birth of the baby, this mother, during the month of feeding, loses about 270 kilograms. (Very good way return her figure to its previous state; not every mother can recover so quickly.)

2. OCTOPUS

When it comes to children, the female octopus does not stand aside. She hatches more than 50,000 eggs and does not require any fertility drugs. The incubation period of eggs is about 40 days. During this time, the mother does not leave her future babies for a second. It protects from predators and also enriches the eggs with oxygen by ventilating the flow of water through the so-called siphon. But playing bodyguard does not give mom the opportunity to hunt and forces her to starve until the children hatch. Unfortunately, such a hunger strike often leads to the death of the mother.

The giant isopod is at the top of our list for a reason. The first thing that does not leave you indifferent is the insidious role of the male. He lures the female into his bachelor hole to mate, where she discovers a "surprise" - a harem with 25 other pregnant women. If that wasn't shocking enough, here's another shocking fact: as soon as children giant isopod When they are ready to be born, they begin to make their way by eating their mother from the inside. This is the worst birth you can imagine.

Cats love everyone!

The most responsible mothers are representatives of the cat family. Their offspring will always be well-groomed, fed and washed clean. They take care of their kittens for about three months. After this period, the kittens become completely independent and no longer require maternal care.

Tigers have a slightly longer lifespan. Tigresses nurture their cubs for two years. During this time, they fully teach their babies all the intricacies of getting food. Tiger cubs begin to eat meat from the age of two months, but they drink mother's milk for about six months. The tiger dad usually does not participate in upbringing, and in general is openly idle - only the tigress gets food for him, for herself and for the babies.

It is interesting that felines have such a strongly developed maternal instinct that they are able to go out and feed even those babies who represent other types of animals - puppies or piglets.

"Cold" parenting

Penguins have a more rigorous process of raising offspring. As soon as the female king penguin lays an egg, she immediately gives it to dad, and he hides his future heir in a special fold of skin. Having made sure that the egg is completely under daddy’s supervision, the mother penguin turns around and, without looking back, rushes to the sea at full speed - to eat up and rest. The female's promenade lasts an unusually long time - two months. All this time, the males guarding the eggs remain almost completely motionless, they do not eat anything and only press closer to each other so as not to freeze themselves and not kill the offspring.

After two months, the females, who have fed up and have eaten, return to the family, finding their husbands by the sounds they make. Next, nutrition and care for the offspring are already on equal rights. At the same time, the male and female feed only their own. If someone else tries to join the family, he is immediately kicked out.

Gerald Durrell, in his book “The Land of Rustle,” described the hardships that accompany a penguin who brings food to his children: “When an adult bird reaches the colony, in order to get to its own nest, it still has to run through a gauntlet of several thousand alien chicks who think that by attacking an adult penguin they can force it to regurgitate food. Therefore, an adult bird now and then has to dodge the attacks of fat fluffy chicks, and it rushes to the right and then to the left as it runs.

Even when the penguin reaches its nest, it is still relentlessly pursued by two or three alien chicks, filled with a firm determination to force it to part with its prey. Feeling at home, the penguin finally loses patience, turns his chest towards his pursuers and begins to punish them in the most cruel way. He hits the chicks with his beak so violently that their down flies over the colony.”

These are how selfish penguins are compared to cats. They feed only their own children, so you can’t give them piglets or puppies - they will be kicked out.

The most caring mothers

Elephants bear their cubs for a very long time - one year and ten months. But even after birth, the elephant does not leave the baby alone for a moment. And, unlike penguins who are hard-hearted towards other people’s children, every elephant, and not only the elephant, but also her brothers and sisters, consider it their sacred duty to look after, feed and take care of the baby elephant in every possible way, even if he is not their relative if we say it birth mother, V this moment, for some reason is missing.

It's hard to believe, but one of the most caring parents are alligators. To begin with, the female builds a nest on her own, and the nests are different for boys and girls. But the alligator herself decides in advance what gender her children will be. She has a special mechanism for this. If the eggs are formed at temperatures above 34 degrees Celsius, then they produce males, and if the temperature is 30 degrees, then they produce females

When the eggs are already in the nest, the mother carefully monitors the temperature and humidity surrounding them and angrily drives away all curious people, even if they, the curious ones, do not pose any obvious danger.

When crocodiles are born, the mother carries them in her mouth into the water and monitors their development for another year.

But if you observe female orangutans, you can come to the conclusion that they fundamentally do not want to part with their offspring. This may be due to the fact that a female orangutan can only become pregnant once in eight years. After the birth of the heir, the mother grooms and cherishes him for another five years in a row, without leaving him literally for a minute. So orangutans begin independent life relatively late.

Frog "Cannibal"

When scientists became acquainted with the attitude of this frog towards its descendants, they were at first horrified.

But soon the superficial acquaintance turned into a deeper one, after which it was the other way around - this frog caused such positive emotions from zoologists that they quite officially called her “caring.” The fact is that a caring mother frog, immediately after laying eggs, immediately... swallows them.

But there is no smell of cannibalism here. On the contrary, for about a month and a half, the frog’s stomach stops secreting gastric juice, the frog itself does not eat anything, and its entire body turns into an incubator, where baby frogs grow.

After six weeks, they are born again straight from the mouth of their caring mother, alive, healthy and ready for independent life.

All children need their mother's love and care. But humans and animals have different ideas about what it means to be a good mother. Moreover, they differ between different types animals.

Some of the animal mothers, from a human point of view, do not bother themselves with unnecessary care, some are shockingly cruel. And some females sacrifice themselves in the name of motherhood.

Let's meet some extraordinary mothers of the animal world.

Chickens

Chicken mothers take their responsibilities very seriously. It is extremely difficult for a chicken to produce large quantities of calcium carbonate, which is necessary for the formation of the shell.

Therefore, if the mother chicken does not receive enough calcium with her food, then in order to build a home for the chicken, she dissolves her own bones!

Cuckoos

Cuckoos are known to be bad mothers. They found a good way that relieves them of this heavy burden - to raise offspring. Mother cuckoo lays her eggs in someone else's bird's nest.

Often these are nests of smaller species of birds, which do not notice anything extra. Cuckoo chicks, as a rule, are born first and grow faster than their “brothers,” often not giving them the opportunity to survive.

Then the babies receive the full attention of their adoptive parents and significantly increase their chances of survival.

Blood sucking ants

A tiny, endangered ant native to Madagascar, the dracula ant ( Adetomyrma) very strangely shows his love for children.

These ants engage in a practice called nondestructive cannibalism. When the queen of the colony gives birth to ant larvae, they and her “subordinates” make small holes in the bodies of the babies in order to feed on their hemolymph (fluid circulatory system, similar to blood in mammals).

Scientists cannot say exactly why these insects do this. Peculiarities social behavior These ants are responsible for transferring fluids to each other, so it is likely that they practice this rudimentary form of behavior.

The larva does not die, but sucking the blood of its young is a very strange way of showing love.

sea ​​louse

IN in this case Let's talk about painful pregnancy. The small, fish-living female sea louse deals with a male who fertilizes 25 females at a time.

When the female’s body is already ready to give life to hundreds of her own kind, she doesn’t care at all, so the babies begin to devour her from the inside in order to be born.

Gray whales

Sometimes mothers in the wild have to go to great lengths to protect their babies.

Pacific whales migrate thousands of kilometers from cold but plankton-rich conditions arctic waters to the relatively nutritionally poor tropical lagoons of the Mexican coast to give birth.

Despite the fact that the whales are deprived of an abundant food supply, in the southern regions they are also free from dangerous killer whales that live in cold waters and prey on newborn whales.

Being in warm waters also gives newborns time to get enough of their mother's incredibly fortified milk, which contains 53 percent fat.

It also helps them create good fat layer before returning to the icy Arctic.

Like bears, female whales starve for several months, but at the same time they produce the necessary caloric milk for their babies.

During this time they can lose about 8 tons in weight!

Spiders

For many spiders, the act of mating means their life is over. However, some mother spiders of the genus Stegodyphus they go even further, their maternal love knows no limits at all.

The mother attaches the cocoons with offspring to her web and carefully guards them until the babies are born. After their birth, she turns almost all the food she eats into a nutritious soup, which she feeds to her offspring.

Children at this time live in a web. When the babies are one month old, the mother allows them to climb on her back and inject deadly poison into her body.

After the children eat the mother, they begin to attack each other. Therefore, the strongest offspring are selected from the mother’s web.

Poison frog

Small females of this poison frog(little tree frog) literally go to any lengths when it comes to taking on motherly responsibilities.

After laying about five eggs, the female carefully watches how they grow and how the babies are born. The little dart frog then carries its tadpoles, one by one, on its back from the ground to a tree more than 30 meters high.

Once the babies are at the top of the tree, the frog builds a personal pool for each of his babies on a separate sheet.

After this, the mother feeds her babies unfertilized eggs for another six to eight weeks, allowing the tadpoles to grow into young frogs without eating each other.