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Instinct plays a huge role in parenting, and humans can learn a lot from the animal kingdom.
Helen Jukes, author of Mother Animal, which explores parenting in the natural world, says that there’s an “extraordinary diversity” when it comes to raising offspring.
“There are single mums and single dads, parenting couples and communal breeders, as well as offspring capable of fending for themselves from birth,” she says.
Animals find a style of parenting that meets the needs of their niche, she says.
Motherhood is a “live balancing act between parent, infant and the wider world”.
Here are some of the best animal parents that Ms Jukes has identified:
1. Polar bears
Polar bear mothers are known for their dedication, but they also exhibit a unique form of control over their reproductive process.
Ms Jukes says polar bears mate in late spring as Arctic temperatures begin to rise. However, the females have the ability to suspend their pregnancy until autumn.
During this period, the embryonic development will either continue or be terminated, depending on whether the mother has built up enough fat reserves throughout the summer months.
This remarkable adaptation allows polar bear mothers to ensure they have sufficient resources to support their offspring in the harsh Arctic environment.
“If all goes well, the pregnant mother will build herself a snow cave and crawl inside it to give birth in winter – she won’t leave the cave, or eat or drink, until the following spring,” says Ms Jukes.
“Her cubs will continue nursing until they’re at least 20 months old, and will stay with her for almost three years.”
2. Orangutans
“Orangutan mothers are nothing if not devoted,” says Ms Jukes. “A female will provide the entirety of her infant’s food and transport for the first years of his life – she might continue nursing until they’re six or seven.”
Raising babies takes so much out of the orangutan mother that she leaves eight to 10 years between successive births, and only has three or four babies during her lifetime.
But she’s “highly attuned” to what those infants need, says Ms Jukes – for example, once they start weaning, she’ll initially prepare food by grinding it up with her teeth, then passing it to them to chew. As they mature, she adapts this technique and they learn to eat whole foods.
“Such an intensive form of parenting might seem like a burden, but it also grants her considerable influence,” Ms Jukes explains. “She defines many of the experiences of the next generation – she shapes their skills and habits. In this way, contrary to the stereotype of the mute and passive mother, she possesses important evolutionary significance.”
3. Malleefowl
As parenting goes, malleefowl (stocky ground-nesting birds with flecked, dust-coloured wings) are at the other extreme, and Jukes explains: “Unlike orangutans, they provide almost nothing in the way of parental care.”
The malleefowl nest is mostly built by the father, who scrapes dead leaves and sand into a large mound that may extend to over four metres in diameter and a metre in height, explains Ms Jukes.
“Neither parent sits on the eggs; they’re incubated through the heat generated by the process of decomposition,” she says.
And, in one of the animal kingdom’s most extreme examples of infant independence, she says: “Once hatched, the chicks will dig themselves out and make a dash for nearby undergrowth without ever seeing their parents.”
4. Smooth guardian frogs
Raising offspring isn’t all down to mother animals, and there are single dads in the animal kingdom, too.
Ms Jukes explains that after a female smooth guardian frog has laid her eggs, the male will guard the clutch for about 10 days, when he shows little interest in mating, eating or even moving.
Once hatched, the tadpoles will climb onto his back to be carried to a nearby pool where they’ll complete their process of maturation to become adult frogs.
“The male smooth guardian frog is one of nature’s single dads, and a remarkably devoted one too,” Jukes observes.
5. Flamingos
Ms Jukes says around 90 per cent of birds parent in couples, and some share tasks with a striking level of flexibility. “Captive flamingos have been observed forming same-sex pairs, and in such cases they appear to split the tasks as an opposite sex couple would – one spends more time away from the nest, while the other primarily looks after the eggs,” she says.
Flamingo parenting is fundamentally a shared task, and in opposite sex couples, both males and females produce a bright ‘crop milk’ from a sac in their throat, which they feed to newborn chicks. Ms Jukes says: “This ‘milk’ is bright red in colour – both parents turn visibly paler through the course of feeding, as their white chicks turn pink.”
6. Giraffes
Parenting is a group effort for giraffes, who form communal creches for raising offspring and frequently feed each other’s calves, explains Ms Jukes.
She says: “We’ve all heard the expression ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, and this is certainly true when it comes to giraffes”.
She points out that in one study, 86 per cent of giraffe calves in a group were seen suckling non-biological mothers. “Adult females have even been known to send out distress signals following the death of another’s calf,” she says, “suggesting they’re capable of forming strong bonds with infants even in the absence of biological ties.”
7. Bats
Bats don’t do solitary parenting either – Ms Jukes says most bat species are highly social, and their offspring are raised in all-female roosts. And as with giraffes, mothers frequently feed each other’s pups.
“Communal creches allow mothers to leave their young in safety while they go out hunting,” says Ms Jukes.
“Should a pup fall to the ground during this time, he’ll emit a loud isolation call, and once a caregiver has found him she’ll stay with him for up to half an hour until his own mother arrives and transports him back to the roost.
“How’s that for good babysitting?”
She adds: “Primed as we are to draw comparisons between ourselves and other species, developing research challenges us to think again about mothering, and about other animals – not just what separates us, but how we’re joined.”
Mother Animal by Helen Jukes is published by Elliott & Thompson on February 27, priced £16.99.
