The Most Protected Baby in the Animal World

it seems easy enough to give birth protecting the one you gave birth to is a much harder task but not for the characters in our video what can a few gallons of water do to your car now it's not hard to imagine how dangerous a waterfall can be is it but that's where these birds hide their babies and hide themselves how'd they come up with it i honestly have no idea the great dusky swift lives in rainforest near waterfalls in northern south america it's probably the only bird that's adapted so well to the powerful jets of water that it's willing to fly through them twice a day swifts spend all day in the air and in the evening one by one they rush into the waterfall it looks as if the birds had woodpeckers in their lineage and sometimes they remember this and begin to bump into hard surfaces some past researchers didn't even believe that swift survived a collision with a waterfall but what looks like an impossible task to some to others is simply routine swifts are born in nests hidden from everyone by a constant stream of water and live in them all their lives no raptor is able to climb that high and who would risk it remember what happened to the car it's amazing isn't it actually just so you understand how well protected these birds are here's a simple example this is what happens to common nests that are located in tree hollows if you don't want you and your babies to get eaten you have to get creative and the hornbills have done just that they too lay their eggs in the hollows but before that happens the female seals the entrance from the inside with dirt droppings or fruit pulp and she seals it up almost completely so that only a small hole or slit remains through which the male will feed her it's simple no one will climb into your nest if there's nowhere to climb a few weeks after the chicks hatch the female destroys the constructed wall gets out of the hollow and then reseals it the chicks leave the hollow as adults and it's not as easy as it seems at first glance you may have been thinking what about all the waste and yes indeed it is a problem females of some species of hornbills dump their dirty litter through a hole in the hollow if you walk by watch your head and yet nature hasn't given many animals any way to protect themselves the armadillo for example just got lucky it curls up in a ball and that's it no one will eat it the rest of the animals didn't draw their winning ticket just imagine you have to constantly almost 24 hours a day seven days a week think about how not to die and some people know how that feels this is a 1940 recording and this person is busy testing an ejection seat basically he's trying to survive it's unclear how strong the next push will be how his body will react to it whether he will survive and how long the experiments will go on in the future this invention will save many lives but few people know that long before humans something similar was invented by frogs look when a snake attacks a clutch the tadpoles wow that's fast they're certainly not going to wait to be eaten normally future tree frogs need more time to hatch but as soon as a predator is near it activates a special escape protocol the snake creates vibrations to which the tadpoles respond and within seconds all the future frogs are rapidly maturing they secrete special enzymes dissolving the sticky shell and instantly break free imagine how surprised the snakes are hey what happened you wouldn't normally expect a frog row to escape it's like your oatmeal would suddenly crawl out of your plate and disappear into the unknown with this defense mechanism the frog parents don't even need to be around to guard the offspring they can easily handle everything on their own but this is not the only species lucky enough to have built-in protection for their offspring circopodia are relatives of cicadas though few are interested in them as adults the nymphs are much more interesting they form a thick foam around themselves as if they spend all their time in the bathtub they created a fence from their watery urine mixed with a special sticky liquid to build some sort of nest of bubbles around them the nymphs have adapted to breathe through the thick layer of foam but most importantly it serves as a natural barrier against predators they say that not only does the foam hide the nymphs from prying eyes but it also has an unpleasant bitter taste i don't even want to think that there's a scientist somewhere who's voluntarily licked the insect urine foam but that seems to be the case it has kind of a bitter taste but the question for scientists was does the nymph breathe through those bubbles okay some animals did go to great lengths to come up with these ways to protect their babies but if nature can be called a school of survival then here as in any classroom there must be its a students and losers this fish is just a role model a pile of strange garbages by the way a nest in which sickle fish lay their eggs amazing level of safety and there are those underwater to look up to the big moth hap is a species of fish that can only be found in lake malawi in africa or in someone's aquarium but their main characteristic is the belief that the safest place for a baby is in its mother's mouth yeah seriously as soon as a predator appears on the horizon all the fry are ready to hide and nothing embarrasses them neither the fact that the mother is in fact a tough predator nor the looks of other underwater inhabitants okay it was too much with the looks but imagine a fry who's been hesitant to start an independent life for too long mom mom you're 35 get a job already mom but it's not just the fish that do this what about crocodiles [Applause] they do about the same thing though not on a regular basis females don't hide their babies inside their mouths when danger first appears but only transport the babies from the place where they were born into the water so that the crocodiles don't become prey to other predators it's usually not a very long journey but try to stop this mother from wanting to care by the way i've come across information that the female sweeps the territory for any dangers beforehand but let's be honest if it happens that way it doesn't help much many baby crocodiles die young despite all the maternal care they're too desirable prey for adult predators maybe that's why mothers try to protect their babies as best they can they even react to the sound that imitates the babies if you turn it on you can scare off a female ready to attack or make her rush to the eggs thinking the crocodiles have started to hatch want more proof that little crocodiles are the most protected babies in the world they have nannies the euro-asian stone curlews are small birds that are as courageous as honey badgers they lay their eggs very close to crocodile clutches so they can guard their future offspring together and don't think that these stone curlews aren't very good defenders birds even lunge at big lizards and look like they're about to say hey you're in the wrong neighborhood buddy crocodiles help birds as well and prey on all predators trying to approach their joint nesting places it is indeed an idol and it's all watched by the gavils they would be glad to carry their babies in their mouths but only fish fit there and their teeth are too sharp well they have to make something up they're still better than guinea fowl let's be honest it's much easier to protect your babies when you're a huge predator but what about small rodents it may seem strange but they use similar ways to protect their young no they don't carry babies in their mouths and hire babysitters they just breed in huge numbers [Music] and crocodiles do the same thing a female nile crocodile can lay up to a hundred eggs at a time from which many little crocodiles hatch this is simply necessary to preserve the population when many of them will inevitably die but there's another way that crocodiles don't know about and it's probably for the best squirrels like some other small animals use the shed snake skin to cover their own scent they literally rub it on themselves and their babies hmm strange but this squirrel has the same perfume as steve does the crocodile want to smell like a snake well unless it's the best spring fragrance we'll see you later you

Channel: WATOP

Views: 7,149,375

Keywords: WATOP, Wa Top, baby crocodile, animal parents, wild, science

Id: Gp-9do5W3tY

Length: 8min 41sec (521 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021