Name: 動物為什麼要照顧其他動物的幼崽 (Why Animals Take Care of Other Animals' Young)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:30:05.000Z
Duration: 8 min 18 s
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Thanks to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for partnering with us

on this episode of SciShow! It otter be a fun one.

Animals snuggling up with baby animals that are not related to them is internet gold.

But memes aside, cute critters taking care of young

that aren't their own, or alloparenting, is a real thing

that has been documented in more than two hundred seventy species.

Take Rosa, for example. That isn't her pup she's snuggling.

You see, she's one of the residents at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

And as a surrogate otter mom, she not only ensures

that orphaned pups get lots of love, she also teaches them

how to be an otter, so they can eventually be released

Like, Selka here is teaching a youngster how to break open

crab shells to get at the tasty meat inside.

Which is great, because catching and cracking open crabs

And this mama is teaching a little one how to dive

The fact that these otters are so willing to lend a paw

and step in as parents might seem surprising, though.

Surprising from an evolutionary perspective, that is.

After all, adoptive parents are essentially helping

someone else's offspring that carry someone else's genes.

And usually, that care is at the adoptive parents' own expense.

They have to use up some of their valuable energy and resources.

Like, a mama sea otter eats more than a third of her body weight

every day in order to have the energy to take care of her pup.

And if she doesn't have enough resources to take care of herself

and her offspring, she'll usually abandon her young

Taking care of a young animal could have other costs, too,

like delaying an animal's ability to have young of their own.

So… why would they do it? Well, it turns out, there are a lot of possibilities.

For starters, for Rosa and Selka and the other animals

at the Aquarium, resources aren't an issue.

The Aquarium's humans make sure everyone has plenty of food.

And the otter moms don't need to worry about sharks or orcas

Making sure the animals in their care are healthy and well fed

is a big part of how rehabilitation programs encourage

potential foster parents to follow their natural inclinations

And sometimes, that 'natural inclination' may be much stronger,

The Aquarium team has observed wild otters adopting lost

And, there have been cases of female polar bears adopting new litters.

In both cases, biologists think that could be

because they were physiologically “primed” for motherhood.

These cases all involve female animals that had recently

And if that happened while the females were lactating,

they may have still had all these hormones swishing around

in their bodies telling them to take care of babies.

Plus, since polar bears raise their cubs in dens away

from other bears, they might not have evolved good

In fact, that's probably another big reason alloparenting happens

—the animals simply don't realize they aren't taking care

This might explain why birds like cowbirds and cuckoos

and successfully pass along their parenting duties to entirely different species!

The parent birds don't want to mistakenly reject one of their own,

so they're better off just taking care of everyone in their nest.

And in some species, breeding sites are so crowded that it can be

hard to tell whose kids are whose, so parents just take care

There might be some other benefits to doing that, too.

It could be that the young are at least sort of related to them

—they're their sister's or their cousin's offspring.

In that case, they share some of the same genes.

Plus, there's the possibility of a little “you watch my kid,

That seems to be what happens in many species of whales and dolphins.

Young ones can't always keep up with their fast-swimming,

And frankly, like most parents, sometimes, cetacean mamas

just want a break to do something not kid-related.

So, it's common for other adults in a social group

to take over parenting duties from time to time.

Sometimes, these alloparents even let the babies drink their milk!

And that might be because they're related to the actual parents,

as social groups tend to contain relatives.

But even if they're not, they might reasonably expect

that someone else will take care of their kids when they need

someone to lend a hand —or, in the event of their untimely demise.

Plus, these temporary caretakers might be learning a thing

or two about how to take care of their own offspring.

That seems to be another major reason animals adopt.

Studies suggest that such parenting practice is especially useful

if animals only produce a few litters in their lifetime

or if caring for their kids requires a lot of work.

On top of all of that, there's evidence that foster parents

get benefits which help them with non-parenting tasks.

Like, they might actually become smarter.

A 2015 paper published in the journal Animal Behaviour

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動物為什麼要照顧其他動物的幼崽 (Why Animals Take Care of Other Animals' Young)

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