Parental care is a special type of
behavioural and cultural adaptation duly adopted by some groups of animals for
ensuring security, safety and care management of their newborns.[1] Diversities
of parental care and related instinct are varyingly discussed in due course of
time.[2] Even
conflicts may arise amongst parents and siblings regarding access and
facilities of parental care.[3] Mating
opportunities of parent organisms may be lost during the tenure of parental
care; it can be counted as an effectiveness of parental involvement in
nurturing new ones.[4]
Male partners, especially in primates and hominids, provide parental care for
ensuring enhancement of their forthcoming mating opportunities and for keeping
the race progressive.[5] Male
member rarely takes the role of care giver in polygamous[6]
mating system but male members play a vital role in parental care where only
one female mates with more than one male (polyandrous species).
Mammals became specially adapted to develop maternal care in terms of
providing extra opportunity to young ones; even new born males are to be
protected from the head of a group. Tendency of the head of a group to kill
newly born male child is common in monkeys.
Tigers often exhibit such kind of attitude.
Biparental care is common in group of
organisms in which selection of mating partner is not so intense and when ratio
of male and female mating partners in a group is balanced (may be 1:1 in case
of human population).[7] The
newborn will gain much benefit from biparental care when both the parents
indulge in offering services while keeping aside their sexual compulsions and
mating urges.[8]
Such kind of participatory care management will avail them extra mating
opportunities.[9]
Do all animals take care of their ward? This question implies a deep
impression in our mind regarding the role of parents in nourishing their young
ones for making them fit for the forthcoming challenging days. Fishes, among most of the animals, are a kind
having no passion for their fry. Similar the case regarding frogs. Snakes and
other reptiles depend entirely upon the nature for hatching of their eggs. Eggs
remain unhatched if temperature of the surrounding, due to certain unwanted reason,
goes down.
Birds never rely only
upon the hatching of their eggs. They can maintain their body temperature up to
a standard level. This standard level of body temperature is used for hatching
purposes. They also change the position of eggs periodically to provide uniform
heat to individual eggs from all sides. They build nests simply for hatching
purposes. In other words, they have no address of any permanent types. Their
breeding and nestling ground may periodically change. They are the creature most
successful in escaping the extreme climatic conditions of nature. There are
instances of the loss of eggs by birds due to harsh climatic conditions. Some
birds, like ducks, often forget about their eggs and come back happily without
taking the egg from the water bodies.
Crocodiles are more ignorant regarding their babies. They even start
eating their young ones in absence of some suitable diet. The reason of such
attitude may be some different. Due to their poor eyesight, they may remain
unaware of the new ones which often try to admit themselves in the water bodies
after the birth. Turtles are quite advanced in this regard. They are capable of
identifying young ones, but cannot provide any special diet during early days
as those of the promising birds. Birds can provide special diet to their new
ones and also introduce them with the ways and means of collecting food from
the nature. They also withdraw themselves gradually due the fact of the early
maturity of their young ones. The span of such parental care depends on the
span of maturation of the individual baby.
Some birds prefer staying in
groups. Some other birds, like pigeon, dove and sparrow, forms a large group
and invade crop fields. Learning from experience and passing on the similar
kinds of learning to their young ones are the only strategy that birds acquire
during their parental care. Learning how to fly, how to hunt and how to harvest
are some other skills which make them fit for the challenging world. People
keep parrots in cages. Such parrots even can mimic a person, entertain a person
by such mimic and can do some other works as per the previously issued
instructions. If, due to any unusual reasons, we liberate that bird and allow
it to lead a free life, it may fail in doing so. This is only because of the
lack of past experiences. In failing to do so, it may become an easy prey of
some other hunters.
Caring babies, giving them
adequate guidance, taking them alongside for a long time and other such
instances of parental care are most common in mammals. They have a prolonged
period of parental care, than compared to other groups of animals. Parental
care of such a long time is the reason due to which a strong bond of love and
affection develops among them. They even express happiness and sorrow on their
own specific languages. Taking hold of a
group, implying dominations upon others and indulging in violent fights are
some other activities that some animals, like tiger, lion, elephant, monkey,
exhibit. Intention of killing the male baby by male tigers and monkeys can be
considered as their precautionary measures, which they want to take to avoid
any forthcoming violent fights. They have no intention in allowing growth of
their rival. Fights between male members of same pride often put the entire
habitat in unrest for few weeks.
Being mother of a baby, tigers
are comparatively more efficient. They teach their babies a lesson of swimming.
They offer their babies a half wounded hunt and allow them to play with it.
They also protect their male babies from the red eyes of grown up male members
of the family. Group fighting for establishing a hold upon the group often
becomes so violent and continues for so long time that it takes the adjoining
areas in its clutch. Mother tiger is more violent during the nourishment of
their babies. They cannot allow the male member of the group to find out the
trace of their hide outs. During earlier stages mother tiger gives optimum care
to her babies. She also helps her babies in learning different hunting skills
and some skills of safeguarding oneself. After successful completion of the
span of parental care, mother tiger continues moving out periodically, leaving
babies alone in the graveyard.
Parental care can be witnessed
with minute details by observing domestic and farm animals. Cats hold their
babies in mouth and continues changing their places after a gap of couple of
days. This is also because of avoiding the violent attack of the male member
upon the male kitten. One can witness the attacking mood of the mother cat
during its moment of parental activities. Cats and dogs of domestic type rely
upon their master to certain extent for nurturing their young ones. These
attitudinal changes are more common in domestically grown up animals having no
exposure to the traditional attitudes of their specific kind. The affinity of
retaining a territorial domination is common amongst both domestic and wild
varieties of animals.
[1] Kokko, H. & Jennions, M.D. (2008)
Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. Journal of Evolutionary
Biology, 21, pp.919–948. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01540.x
[2] Gonzalez-Voyer, A. and Kolm, N. (2010).
Parental Care and Investment. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences.
doi:10.1002/9780470015902.a0021907
[3] Parker, G.A., Royle, N.J. & Hartley,
I.R. (2002) Intrafamilial conflict and parental investment: a synthesis.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, 357,
pp.295–307. doi:10.1098/rstb.2001.0950
[4] Bednekoff, P. A. (2010). “Life Histories
and Predation Risk”. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. Academic Press. pp.
285-286. ISBN 978-0-123-72581-3.
[5] Kerhoas, D., Kulik, L.,
Perwitasari-Farajallah, D., Agil, M., Engelhardt, A. & Widdig, A. (2016).
Mother-male bond, but not paternity, influences male-infant affiliation in wild
crested macaques. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 70(8), pp.1117-1130.
doi:10.1007/s00265-016-2116-0
[6] The
system of mating in which only one male member mates with several female
members staying in a group; for example mating system in monkeys, lions,
baboons etc.
[7] Remeš, V., Freckleton, R., Tökölyi, J.,
Liker, A. & Székely, T. (2015). The evolution of parental cooperation in
birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(44),
pp.13603-13608. doi:10.1073/pnas.1512599112
[8] Pilakouta, N., Hanlon, E. & Smiseth,
P. (2018). Biparental care is more than the sum of its parts: experimental
evidence for synergistic effects on offspring fitness. Proceedings of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 285(1884), p.20180875.
doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0875
[9] Bales, K. (2017). Parenting in animals.
Current Opinion in Psychology, 15, pp.93-98. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.02.026
