The more developed the animal's care for. How do animals take care of their young?

You will learn how animals take care of their offspring in this article.

How do animals care for their offspring?

Caring for offspring is one of the basic instincts inherent in modern fauna. This ensures productive development for procreation.

Main important rule nursing is the process of feeding. Like everyone else, babies need proper nutrition. For the most part, it's mother's milk. It is with milk that the cubs absorb the love, instincts, and skills of their parents. Some mothers feed their offspring while standing, others - lying down. However, this is not important. The main thing is that the young body receives all the nutrients.

Home comfort and cleanliness are another rule for the proper upbringing of offspring. This habit is probably inherent in all mammals, without exception. As a rule, the mother takes each baby and thoroughly cleans it, pulls out dirt or excess hair, and selects fleas. For example, rabbits have the habit of plucking fluff on their bellies and using it to insulate their mink. This allows kids not to freeze in cold weather. But if the parents are not around, then almost all the cubs gather in a group to maintain internal warmth.

And, of course, protection from enemies. Not all mammals or birds have a menacing appearance. Some of them fight to the last to save the future generation. And with the help of parental instincts it is much easier to do this.

With an extremely beautiful “fur coat”. Because of their amazing skin, they were on the verge of extinction in the recent past. The reason for this is people who exterminated beavers in huge quantities, using their skins to sew fur coats and hats.

It is difficult to find more industrious animals; they cannot live without work; they are born builders who use their strong teeth as tools. Beavers are also exemplary spouses and parents. Matriarchy reigns in their family; in a pair, a female and a male are very kind to each other and raise their offspring together. If you are interested in learning how beavers care for their young, read this article.

Description of beavers

In ancient times, the ancestors of beavers were enormous in size; their current descendants are not so large, but they cannot be called small rodents. An adult beaver reaches a length of 1.3-1.4 m and weighs 25-30 kg. Females are different large sizes. The female mother leads the entire family; it is she who organizes construction work and controls the filling of storerooms with supplies for the winter.

The beaver's limbs are short, they move awkwardly on land, but in the water they have no equal in swimming and diving. The muzzle is blunt, the ears are small. The fur consists of two layers: a guard hair of red-brown color and a thick gray undercoat. Such a “fur coat” can protect the animal from the cold and prevents it from freezing in icy water.

The beaver uses its black, bare tail as a paddle when maneuvering underwater. It is horizontally flat and covered with scales. The pride of these animals is their teeth. They are unusually strong and continue to grow throughout life. If these hardworking rodents did not grind them down on wood every day, it is impossible to imagine how long their teeth would grow.

in wild nature

The usual habitat of beavers is freshwater bodies of water that are surrounded by forests. In this case, the reservoir must be deep; if it is a river and not a lake, then the flow in it must be very slow. In many cases, these water workers build dams and thus create for themselves necessary conditions. They work mainly at night; during the day they prefer to hole up in their underwater homes.

Beavers are staunch vegetarians; their menu consists only of woody and plant foods. IN summer time they eat leaves, buds, shoots and, of course, branches. They stock up on wood for the winter; the older couple forces the whole family to work so that in winter there is enough food for both adults and children. Since beavers take care of their young, they need to work a lot. Young people cannot take care of themselves until they live close to their parents and learn how to survive from them.

How beavers care for their young: from birth to 2 months

The mating season for beavers falls in the winter, when they have little work to do and spend most of their time in their houses. Fertilization takes place in January - February. The female carries the babies for approximately 100 days. At one time, from 1 to 6 beaver cubs are born.

The babies see perfectly, their weight is about 0.5 kilograms. They have a fluffy coat from birth. After two to three days, the beavers are already able to swim. The answer to the question of how beavers care for their young can be answered unequivocally - excellent! The beaver mother is very kind to the little ones, but at the same time she does not forget to teach them life with all the rigor. To accustom them to water, the first time she has to forcefully push the reluctant beaver cubs into the underwater corridor. But this is only for their benefit; a caring female will never cause harm to her offspring.

Until two months, the beaver, one might say, does not leave the little critters, feeds them with milk, and cleans their “fur coat.” After the babies are a month and a half old, they are gradually weaned from the breast and accustomed to regular food. First, they are given soft leaves and water lilies, in addition to this, they are also fed with mother’s milk. All family members take care of the cubs, protect them and make sure they don’t get into trouble.

How animals care for their young (beavers): from 2 months to 2 years

In the first year of life, beaver cubs are under the constant supervision of their older relatives. Growing up, they get out and, together with adults, gradually join the working rhythm of life. Young people are too curious and often fall into dangerous situations. Since beavers take care of their young in the most serious way, the growing offspring feel safe in the territory occupied by the family.

Before the end of the first year of life, young rodents reach a weight of about 10 kg. Until the age of two, they live with their parents in their home. A beaver family consists of a parent pair and their offspring of the current and previous year.

For two years, beaver parents have been trying to teach their children everything they will need in life. independent life: construction of dams, housing, arrangement of pantries and how to store food for the winter, how to protect yourself from natural enemies.

At the age of two, trained young beavers must leave the family territory. They scatter around in search of a couple and together with her they set up their own home.

Animals of different species care for their offspring

Most animal species care for and protect their offspring better than some careless people. You already know how animals (beavers) take care of their young. Here are some interesting facts about how parental care manifests itself in other representatives of the animal world:

Lions always accompany a lion cub on a walk, staying close to him and monitoring his every step.
. The elephant will happily adopt an abandoned or orphaned elephant calf and will take care of it no worse than birth mother.
. Every time before leaving home, the squirrel carefully wraps up its babies, since they are born completely naked.
. When is it worth heatwave, a protective pigment is secreted in the milk of a female hippopotamus. Little hippo feeds on reddish milk.
. If conditions for the birth of a calf are unfavorable, the female armadillo can freeze the pregnancy. The baby can be born even after 2 years.

Material from Uncyclopedia

In order for a species to continue to exist, each generation must leave behind offspring capable of reproduction. Most invertebrates and fish do not care for their offspring. They simply lay out thousands of eggs, only some of them produce young, and an even smaller number grow and reproduce. A more reliable way to continue the race is to provide them with food, protect them from predators, and even teach them some skills after the birth of a limited number of cubs. Many animals show care for their offspring in different forms. Most of them are endowed with special parental instincts, but in highly organized animals important also has individually acquired experience.

In its simplest form, care for the offspring is present in all organisms and is expressed in the fact that reproduction occurs only in conditions favorable for the offspring - in the presence of food, suitable temperature, etc.

Caring for the offspring of many animals begins with preparation for their birth. Often seasonal migrations of animals are associated with movement to breeding grounds, sometimes many thousands of kilometers from their habitats. Animals that do not make such long journeys also choose their nesting territory in advance, and many of them carefully guard it and prepare shelters - nests, burrows, dens, adapted for future offspring.

A lot of parental worries are associated with feeding their offspring.

For most insects, caring for their offspring is simple. It is enough for the female to lay her eggs in a place where her larvae would find suitable food, for example butterfly larvae cabbage whites- cabbage. But some insects specially prepare shelter and food for their offspring, for example, honey collectors - wasps and bees. And hunting wasps provide their larvae with crickets and grasshoppers. Before laying an egg, the sphex wasp injects poison into the nerve ganglia of its victim, so that it remains motionless but alive and serves as a supply of fresh food for the larva during the entire period of its development. In dung beetles, not only females, but also males participate in the preparation of food for their offspring - dung balls.

In many birds, the chicks hatch completely helpless and need frequent and regular feeding; some insectivorous birds feed their offspring up to 200 times a day! Sometimes parents (jays, nutcrackers, etc.) store food for future chicks in the fall. The offspring of brood birds - chickens, ducks, geese, etc. - are born independent, able to swim, walk, and peck. Parents can only take them to food, water, protect them from enemies, and warm them (see Imprinting).

Female mammals feed their young with milk until they are able to eat other foods. In some animals this period lasts several weeks, in others it lasts longer, and in apes it lasts several years. Gradually, parents begin to accustom their children to adult food, they show edible plants, teach to hunt.

Many animals protect their offspring from enemies. In birds, colonial nesting serves this purpose, but solitary nesting birds can also unite to drive away predators from their nests. For example, if a cat or even a person tries to climb a tree where there is a crow’s nest, 10-15 birds flock to him and attack the troublemaker with screams.

Most mammals are more excitable than usual when raising their young. Many large wild mammals attack people precisely when they threaten their cubs or are close to them. The moose does not allow anyone, including other moose, to see the cub.

In many mammals and birds, the young stay with their parents for a long time, acquiring the skills necessary for life through imitation. This is the period of raising offspring. Parents teach their cubs to choose and find food, water and even medicinal plants, as well as shelter for sleeping or in case of bad weather. These forms of parental care are especially developed in mammals with a long life span. In elephants and some apes, adolescence lasts up to 8-10 years. Not only parents, but also almost all adult members of the group take part in raising their offspring. Older brothers, and especially sisters, or simply females who do not have this moment their own offspring, look after the cub, help feed it, look after it, play with it. If the mother dies, they usually adopt the orphaned cub. This collective form of caring for offspring significantly increases the chances of their survival.

The highest development of caring for offspring is in humans. He not only takes care of the children’s livelihoods, but also educates them, passes on to them his life experience and knowledge accumulated in history.

We can talk for a long time about the dedication of the parents of the animal world. Most often, representatives of the female half show the greatest sacrifice. However, in some species, the main role of caring for the offspring falls on fathers. There are those who deliver babies and incubate eggs, some even bear future babies.

Seahorses simply amaze with their parental responsibilities. Their male half periodically becomes a mother: they bear and give birth to their young. The carefree female only drops the eggs into the male’s pocket, where he subsequently fertilizes them and waits for the fry to appear for a month and a half. All the accompanying changes occur in his body: the abdomen enlarges and rounds, and childbirth is accompanied by contractions. After birth, the young offspring continues to develop completely separately - the parent’s mission is completed.

It's a shame that these amazing creatures are subjected to brutal destruction. The Chinese catch them en masse and turn them into living keychains, placing them in special solutions; they use seahorses as a means of folk medicine. Only thanks to the large offspring, these animals can still delight our eyes with their beauty and natural features.

You feel great respect when you learn about the duties of the Nandu ostrich fathers. They are not monogamous creatures. Males gather around themselves a whole harem, sometimes consisting of 7-12 females. They all lay their eggs in one hole one at a time. This process takes 5-7 days. As soon as the first clutch appears, the father diligently hatches the eggs. He sits throughout the night and early morning until the dew evaporates. The father leaves the nest for a very long time a short time for a little snack. When danger appears, the ostrich begins to hiss, snort and click its beak, thus driving away enemies. After six weeks of tireless vigil, the babies appear. They hatch one after another, in the order in which the mother laid the eggs. The father does not abandon the group of young animals to the mercy of fate, but carefully walks them around the surrounding area.

Marmoset monkeys are very small and funny creatures from the primate species. In the latter category, females are usually the main ones in rearing. However, marmosets family rules somewhat different. Firstly, they are monogamous, secondly, future fathers are very attentive to their pregnant half, thirdly, males take part in the birth of cubs, fourthly, the male half takes care of, raising and getting to know the world of the younger generation on their shoulders . Fathers bring babies to mothers only for feeding.

Bigfoots living in Australia and Oceania have a slightly strange appearance. They look like a chicken without feathers on its neck. As scientists have established, this feature is an important component for hatching chicks. It must be borne in mind that the purpose of the female is only to lay eggs. Further, the process is controlled by the father: he does not hatch the eggs, but constantly checks the temperature of the nest, which is a small hole covered with fallen leaves. When plants rot, they release heat. To prevent future offspring from overheating, the father rake away the foliage, and when it gets cool, he covers them again. The bird's bare neck allows it to check its temperature. He lowers it into the nest and in this way determines whether the eggs are comfortable. The big leg “works” like this for 11 months.

Coyotes and jackals are exemplary family men. They are not separated from their family either during the female’s pregnancy, during childbirth, or after the birth of the babies. His main role is to bring food prepared by him into the hole. When the cubs are born, the father increasingly goes hunting and, so that the fragile crumbs can eat, regurgitates some of the food he has digested.

Emperor penguins are an example of equality in the family. The roles are distributed as follows: the mother steadfastly bears the egg, and the father patiently incubates the chick. The male carefully places his oval “treasure” on his paws and covers it with a special fold - a brooding bag. For three months, the father does not release the egg, moving slowly and carefully, not eating anything during this period. Expectant mothers gain strength in the ocean, returning to the birth of their offspring. If the female is delayed, the young father can feed the baby with a special nutritious juice produced by his body. For the next 4-5 weeks, the penguin chicks grow in their mother's pouch. Afterwards, parents feed their pets one by one, looking for them in the “kindergarten”

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HOW ANIMALS CARE

ABOUT YOUR PROGRESS

Maxim Kozak 3 “G” class

HOW ANIMALS CARE FOR THEIR OFFENDER

The success of the offspring's survival depends to a great extent on the adequacy of the parents' behavior. Caring for the offspring of many animals begins with preparation for their birth. Often seasonal migrations of animals are associated with movement to breeding grounds, sometimes many thousands of kilometers from their habitat. Animals that do not make such long journeys also choose their nesting territory in advance, and many of them carefully guard it and prepare shelters - nests, burrows, dens, adapted for future offspring.

1. Caring for the offspring of bears.

Females produce offspring every three years. In October or November, pregnant bears leave sea ​​ice and head to the nearest land in search of a den where they raise their young during the long polar night. Having reached land, the bear searches for a suitable place for a long time until she chooses a depression or cave in a snowdrift of old snow. Gradually, snowstorms sweep the den and leave traces that reveal its location. After a few months, tiny bear cubs no larger than a rat appear inside the snow den. Newborn bears, burrowing into their mother's fur, immediately look for nipples and begin to suck. A baby bear's claws are curved and sharp - this helps him hold on to the soft fur on the mother bear's belly.

Meanwhile, the female is starving and her weight drops by almost half. But she will only be able to go hunting when her children grow up and gain strength. Cubs need time to get used to arctic temperatures after several months of living in a den warm from their mother's body. After 2-3 months, the weight of the cubs increases 4-5 times, and the family begins to take short walks in the immediate vicinity of the home. The mother bear introduces the cubs to something new to them. environment, teaches hunting skills and shows amazing patience with the frisky games and curiosity of the cubs. The mother bear's care for her cubs does not stop until they become independent.

Fathers, as often happens in nature, do not take the slightest part in the fate of their offspring, shifting all worries about feeding the cubs onto the shoulders of the bear. However, food is not the only problem facing a female with cubs. The real threat comes from adult males who compete with each other for the possession of a female. Given the chance, a large male could easily kill her cubs. The female will then go into heat again and he can mate with her to ensure that the next generation will inherit his genes. Therefore, females are very vigilant and do not let their cubs go far from them.

2.Caring for offspring in monkeys.

Continuation of the family - the most important aspect animal life. In some animals, caring for their offspring takes only a short period of time after birth. However, among monkeys, children are born completely defenseless, and they require quite a long period of care. This period can last for months and often for years. Even after the young are able to care for themselves, they remain in close contact with their mother. For two to ten years, depending on the species, young primates are not only protected by their mother, but also undergo training from her.
In early childhood, little monkeys feed on their mother's milk and gradually, over the course of several months, switch to food common to their species. The mother is not only a nurse for the cub, but also a protector. Caring for the offspring comes to an end when the cubs reach sexual maturity, but this can happen earlier if the mother gives birth to another baby.

3. Caring for the offspring of foxes.

Before the birth of offspring married couple cleans the hole and the female spends most of her time in it. Only in the first days after the birth of the fox, when the female does not leave the hole, does the male bring her food, and then returns to single life. All care for the offspring falls on the female: she skillfully obtains food and selflessly protects the cubs. The mother fox barks at the man from behind the bushes, trying to divert his attention from the hole, and tries to lead the dog with her

4. Caring for the offspring of lions.

If a lioness becomes pregnant, then after 3.5 months, shortly before giving birth, she again leaves the pride. She finds a shady, inconspicuous place and there the offspring are born - from 1 to 6, on average, three lion cubs. At first they are looked after by their mother, and after returning to the pride, all lionesses are equally affectionate with the cubs and do not distinguish between their own and others. In a pride, lion cubs are born synchronously, which gives them an advantage: mutual feeding and collective defense are known to significantly reduce cub mortality. The role of the lion in caring for the offspring is primarily to protect the pride from wandering male lions. He can also make sure that when dividing the prey, the lion cubs get their portion. But females protect lion cubs from predators.

5. Caring for the offspring of hippos.

The emergence of new life is always surprising and wonderful! Watching how caring and tender the new mother is, how touchingly clumsy and

Newborn baby animals are beautiful, it is interesting to know how pregnancy proceeds and birth occurs in hippos.

Pregnancy lasts 8 months (227-240 days according to various sources). Feeling the approach of childbirth, the female leaves the herd to a secluded place. In most cases, she gives birth under water, less often on land. If childbirth on land is inevitable, then the expectant mother prepares something resembling a nest from the surrounding bushes. To do this, she tramples down bushes and grass. A newborn baby weighs 25-50 kg, most often 40 kg babies are born. Its length is about a meter, its shoulders are 50 cm wide. If a toddler is born under water, then the female pushes him with her muzzle to the surface so that he does not suffocate, since he can only hold his breath for 40 seconds. A newborn hippo is already on his feet on his own after 5 minutes from the moment of birth.

For the first 10 days, the mother is with her child and eats practically nothing. She is ready and capable of defeating even a tiger if it shows even the slightest threat to her beloved cub. Only when he is strong enough to go ashore on his own does the mother move away a little from the newborn. Feeding usually occurs over a period of 4-18 months. And what’s surprising is that the baby can suck milk both on land and in water, pressing his nostrils and ears tightly to the body.

In the water, the female helps the baby swim, gently pushing him with her muzzle. When the baby gets tired, she takes him on her back (on the scruff of the neck) and carries him around. In a herd, the mother pushes all adult males away from the baby so that in a stampede they do not crush him.

In the animal world there are the most different shapes care for the offspring: from complete absence to the most complex and long-term relationships between children and parents. In its simplest form, care for the offspring is present in all organisms and is expressed in the fact that reproduction occurs only in conditions favorable for the offspring - in the presence of food, suitable temperature, etc.

Internet.

Sites: Caring for offspring, Caring for offspring in lions, Caring for offspring in hippopotamuses, Caring for offspring in monkeys, The meaning of caring for offspring, Photos of animals with cubs.

Description of work

The success of the offspring's survival depends to a great extent on the adequacy of the parents' behavior. Caring for the offspring of many animals begins with preparation for their birth. Often seasonal migrations of animals are associated with movement to breeding grounds, sometimes many thousands of kilometers from their habitat. Animals that do not make such long journeys also choose their nesting territory in advance, and many of them carefully guard it and prepare shelters - nests, burrows, dens, adapted for future offspring.