Nature displays excellent examples of motherhood
Mother's Day celebrates human mothers. But humans do not have a monopoly on motherhood and maternal responsibility.
A mother grizzly bear or Bengal tiger will take immediate action to protect her cub from perceived danger, including a human foolish enough to pick one up. Clearly, they are concerned and caring mothers.
Some animals, such as reptiles and amphibians, may seem oblivious to the fate of their offspring, but nothing could be further from the truth. The ancestors of virtually every animal species on earth today had successful mothering techniques – though perhaps different from our ideas of proper mothering.
Some of the means employed by other species to raise their young are noteworthy. The complexity of living systems interacting with their environments and each other makes the mother mission particularly convoluted for some. The range of variability in the level and type of attention parents give their offspring is impressive.
Some show active concern for the welfare of their young in a manner we can recognize. Like human mothers, apes, elephants and alligators protect their babies for an extended period after birth, defending their progeny against external threats long after they are born.
At the other extreme are the mothers that deserve a Mother's Day card because of the front-end investment in their offspring.
For example, a female snapping turtle develops large follicles inside her body, which are equivalent to the yolk of a bird egg, months before laying her eggs. The eggs are fertilized by a male snapper during the mating period, and during the spring the mother snapper treks overland to find a suitable spot to dig a hole and lay her clutch. The developing embryos have enough yolk to nourish the baby turtle for an entire year during its early life.
So, although she drops the eggs, covers the nest, and never looks back, she has done her nurturing in the early stages, before the baby reaches the water months later.
All mammal babies depend on mother's milk for nourishment. Even so, the variability in maternal care among species is extensive.
Tree shrews of Southeast Asia seemingly give minimal attention to their young. The female lives in one tree and has her babies in a nest some distance away. She visits the nest once every couple of days to let the young nurse. On the other hand, possum moms are always on hand for a hungry baby because they carry them around in a pouch until the young can fend for themselves.
Despite how different these nursing styles are from most mammals, both approaches can be deemed successful ones. Why? Because tree shrews and marsupials have been around for a long, long time.
Whale and dolphin mothers have an additional responsibility. Their babies must breathe air, yet they live in an aquatic habitat. These marine mammals must not only nurse the young but also nudge their newborns to the surface at regular intervals for air.
Most birds exhibit maternal, and sometimes paternal, care. The first step is to incubate the eggs till they hatch, which may be a shared responsibility.
In some cases both parents feed the babies in the nest. Parents feeding young fledglings at a backyard feeder is not an uncommon sight. Like some humans, teenage birds may play the helpless card as long as a parent is willing to keep bringing food to its open mouth.
Can we declare which animals make the best mothers? No. Mothers worldwide do what works best for them and their young based on their evolutionary history.
Any species still around has presumably been doing things right in the mother game, whether by constant attention or by what appears to us as complete disinterest. The measures an animal will take to protect its offspring are more impressive for some than for others. But the mothers of all animals, including humans, are so remarkable that it is fitting to have a special day to honor them.
Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.