Stingray Gives Birth to 1 Child Per Second Because There Is a Shark Nearby

if you know a thing or two about wildlife you've probably heard that some animals can abandon their children when threatened but what about getting rid of offspring that wasn't even born yet female rays do this if they're approached by a shark or if they feel threatened in some other way but abortion doesn't always happen so that the female can save herself oddly enough this is a chance to save the offspring yes most likely the kids will be very weak and small but the predator will prefer to eat an adult prey not chase every small fry turns out the mother sacrifices herself for the sake of her offspring sharks by the way act the same way fishing induced births have been observed in 88 different species of sharks and rays including endangered species that is when the female is pulled out of the water she tries to give her offspring a chance to live it's estimated that one in four pregnant females on average release offspring prematurely but for some species it happens 85 percent of the time something similar happens if the mother accidentally ends up on the shore maybe she won't get to the water but the cubs will have a chance i don't know exactly how the baby rays are supposed to make it apparently this is their problem on the one hand it may seem like an insane strategy but think about this both sharks and rays appeared on our planet a very long time ago their common ancestors swam in the oceans 200 million years ago and since sharks and rays are still not extinct it means this strategy works actually animals get rid of their offspring during pregnancy much more often than you might think and each of these cases is justified from an evolutionary standpoint take the bruce effect in 1959 scientist hilda margaret bruce noticed that pregnant mice abort when exposed to unfamiliar males other lab rodents and also domestic horses do the same thing and then it turned out wild animals do it too like for example gelatins these are creepy looking primates no really look at them but why get rid of an unborn child turns out the reason is resources if the leader of the group changes or a new strong male shows up he'll surely kill the cubs from another male in terms of nature this means a lot of wasted time and effort so the females do everything themselves and then give birth to offspring from new males these new cubs will surely survive have you ever seen quocas charming smiling animals which always seem to be in a good mood no really seems like they're always smiling even when they throw their kids at a predator what they don't seem so cute anymore cocas sacrificed their offspring to save themselves and i must say it's much easier for them to do this than for sharks after all we're talking about a marsupial animal and tossing a cub away from a pouch only takes a couple of seconds well baby cocas have no chance to survive but enough about bad parenting let's better talk about animals who are ready to do a lot for the sake of their kids like alligators did you know that female alligators literally sacrifice their skin just to lay eggs and this is not a rare case but something that happens all the time in any season one alligator can lay up to 40 eggs in a clutch which in total amounts from 3 to 7 ounces of calcium this calcium doesn't appear out of nowhere females use osteoderms they're built in subcutaneous armor scientists even took x-rays ran a bunch of tests and found out that the osteoderms of nesting females are indeed much lighter and not as dense as those of other gators over 10 percent of the calcium in alligator armor goes to form the eggs how scientists haven't figured this out yet but they've already managed to find out that the ambient temperature of the developing eggs determines the gator's sex no literally 86 degrees fahrenheit produces females 91 degrees fahrenheit males although steve and i didn't find information about female alligators trying to warm up their clutches and produce males on purpose but then we came across surprising information about bears actually these animals tried to stay as far away from humans as possible to increase their chances of survival however sometimes females with cubs on the contrary tend to get closer to human habitation no it has nothing to do with the search of food the female bears use us as a human shield look it's quite simple if a female bear with cubs meets a male in the forest during the mating season her cubs are doomed there's practically no way around that more than a third of all brown bear cubs die during the mating season males account for more than 90 percent of the deaths and many female bears know about it they also know that even the most aggressive lone male wouldn't want to get close to humans just think about it people protect some bears from other bears and it works bears are actually quite smart animals smart enough to plan ahead sometimes they're even too smart so much so that they can deceive humans although when you look at pandas they don't strike you as particularly smart creatures they're fluffy funny clumsy fatties who notice that people really want them to breed at panda breeding center staff immediately react if the animal starts showing signs of pregnancy the panda pandas transferred to a separate air-conditioned room enjoys the best food including fruits bamboo and even buns in short these are perfect conditions and constant care this is how they treated a panda named ai hen but two months later they discovered that she faked pregnancy yeah just to get access to delicious food and other stuff the thing is panda pregnancy is poorly understood and it's almost impossible to determine that this particular panda just wants more buns so in the end eihen was deprived of her privileges must have been very frustrating but don't worry about her two years later in 2016 this panda really got pregnant gave birth to a male and finally got as many buns as she wanted you feel that it's like it's getting cooler no well that's because you're not an australian zebra finch chip sounds incredible but these birds really sing to their unhatched chicks to cool them down okay first things first as soon as the surrounding temperature rises above 79 degrees fahrenheit zebra finches give a call to their future offspring and this slows down the growth of the chicks inside the eggs what for well when you live in australia and it's pretty hot around having a small body helps you deal with that heat by losing heat physics at work the rest is simple if you suffer from the heat it's difficult to find a mate and leave offspring if you don't well done evolution is on your side but of course zebra finches are not the only creatures on the planet who sing to their unborn kids female dolphins do this too moreover each mother-to-be makes unique sounds perhaps so that the calf gets used to the voice and can recognize it later even after giving birth the mother continues to sing to the baby for a couple of months and the rest of the dolphins try to be quiet at this time not to interfere oh wait i got distracted by dolphins and completely forgot to tell you something else about bird eggs and parental care bird eggs come in a wide variety of colors but studies show that in general the logic behind their coloring is quite simple the colder the climate the darker the egg laid by the parent birds you get it right dark eggs absorb more heat than light eggs this keeps the chicks warm while their parents are looking for food scientists even created a map of the egg colors everything checks out but just in case they ran studies on chicken eggs well brown eggs heat up faster and cool slower than lighter ones okay enough about eggs and birds better check out mongooses because they've developed a special system for caring for their pups the vast majority of mongoose mothers in a group give birth on the same night well maybe at slightly different times but in such a way that in the end no one could understand whose offspring belongs to which mongoose doesn't sound like a good idea but actually this is how every cub gets exactly the same amount of care food and training in all sorts of useful skills all baby mongooses are equal have the same chance of becoming adults which means that the whole group will flourish for mongooses it's very important that their group is big enough because these guys engage in gang wars with other groups fighting regularly results in serious injuries deaths and reproduction no kidding some males and females from different clans managed to procreate right during gang wars as good a time as any right with the exception of gang wars mongooses are very good at parenting as for cuckoo catfish well it's probably trying its best this cuckoo catfish puts its eggs in the mouth of cichlids which raise their young there cuckoo catfish eggs develop faster and by the time the little cichlids appear in the mouths the intruders are already quite hungry well it's clear what happens next sometimes an adult cichlid does notice that there's something odd in its mouth in this case the baby cuckoo catfish develops and hatches somewhere outside but then when the mother cichlid releases her offspring outside during feeding the catfish can still sneak into her mouth if cichlids could figure out what's happening perhaps they'd somehow prepare and protect their offspring although this fish could hardly be as ingenious as a tiger kielback when a female of this species becomes pregnant she crawls into the forest to eat as many toxic toads as she can find the logic behind this behavior is simple the snakes don't produce their own venom which means they have to use someone else's toxin for protection but the future offspring simply won't be able to quickly eat a toxic toad it won't fit into their tiny mouths and they'll be in danger so snake mothers diligently build up a supply of toxins their kids simply need to have them and here i thought that buying a stroller a crib and all sorts of training is hard enough for future parents we'll see you later

Channel: WATOP

Views: 531,594

Keywords: WATOP, Wa Top

Id: t8NLw3cUsBY

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2022