Worst Animal Parents In The World

having kids is no walk in the park but if you thought your childhood wasn't perfect just wait until you hear about some of the stuff that goes down in the animal kingdom from mothers encouraging sibling violence to sneaky abandonment tactics and even hungry mamas chowing down on their own spawn for lunch coming up are some of the worst animal parents around [Music] cuckoos cuckoos are some of the most infamous bad mothers in the entire animal kingdom for these birds the stress of parenting is just too much to take on so to avoid all the hassle they abandon their kids before they're even born when she's ready to lay an egg a female cuckoo will swoop into the unattended nest of a smaller species she will then swallow one of the eggs that's been laid there and lay one of her own in its place this behavior is known as brewed parasitism and it's one seriously sneaky tactic by leaving her own egg in another bird's nest mama cuckoo shifts the responsibility of raising her young to another unsuspecting mother and unburdens herself in the process freeing herself up to go and live life as a sexy single bird again unfortunately for her victims the cuckoo chick is hardly a welcome addition to any nest in fact this imposter chick usually hatches earlier and grows faster than the other bird's real brood forcing the smaller chicks out of the nest where they will likely die sometimes the targeted birds revolt the parents that inhabit the nest may mob the cuckoo mom to stop her from dropping off her egg alternatively they might even push the cuckoo eggs out before they hatch or abandon the nest altogether but more often than not the cuckoo mom gets away with her evil scheme undetected leaving her victim with another big greedy mouth to feed man nature really is hardcore sometimes burying beetles for such small critters burying beetles have some fearsome mothering tactics true to their name these endangered black and orange insects bury the carcasses of small vertebrates such as birds and mice as a food source for their larva once the larva hatch inside their new fleshy home mom regurgitates the pre-digested meat to feed her kids but there's one small problem there's rarely enough meat to go around whenever they're hungry burying beetle larva pester for food by touching their parents mouths with their legs but there's one crucial rule they have to remember pester mommy too much and prepare to pay the ultimate price you see burying beetles occasionally punish young who nag for food by eating those who annoy them the most according to research by edinburgh university this cutthroat parenting behavior encourages the larva to plead more honestly according to how hungry they are rather than trying to outdo their siblings by constantly pestering for more the threat of being eaten also allows the mother beetle to maintain some control over how she feeds her squabbling offspring like other mammals and birds burying beetles seem to favor elder offspring because they're more likely to grow up and survive to procreate so if you're a baby beetle who values their life it doesn't pay to pester mommy unless you're really hungry unlike mama burying beetle i just love being pestered and what's the best way to pester me by hitting those like and subscribe buttons and ringing that little bell icon duh you won't get a tasty snack in return but what you will get is a whole lot of amazing content right into your subscription box so what are you waiting for sharks sharks often get a bad reputation as nothing more than psychopathic bloodthirsty killers and their parenting habits don't do much to improve on it in fact shark moms are notoriously bad at parenting before they even give birth you see some sharks have live births with placentas a bit like mammals but others have live babies without an organ to feed the developing fetuses so how do they get their nutrients i hear you ask well by eating their own siblings that's how these sharklets start their life by waking up inside a tiny pitch-black cave populated by their brothers and sisters that look just like them but little do they know that this womb is about to become the next hunger games arena there may be as many as 20 eggs starting out in two uteri and each will hatch and live peacefully inside their mother until they grow sharp jaws and they feel their tiny bellies rumbling that is of the 20 shark babies that hatch only one from each uterus will survive to be born into the world which probably explains why adult sharks have such a chip on their shoulder it's quite hard to imagine what it would feel like to have 20 sets of frenzied jaws snapping away inside you at once but it's safe to say it probably isn't pleasant sure shark moms don't go around smoking and drinking while pregnant but they certainly deserve minus parenting points for hosting a terrifying death match inside their own womb tasmanian devils your idea of tasmanian devils is probably heavily influenced by the utterly badass looney tunes cartoon but these carnivorous marsupials are even more hardcore in real life for starters they have the strongest mammalian bite in the world pound for pound but there's also the matter of how they raise their kids to prepare them for a life as one of earth's most fearsome creatures the first thing they experience when they open their eyes is a thunderdome-style death match that fewer than 1 in 10 will survive you see mama tasmanian devil will give birth to as many as 50 tiny babies called joey's at once but there's one big problem she only has four teats to go around unfortunately the phrase sharing is caring means nothing to a tasmanian devil so the rules are simple whoever can make it to mommy's feeding nozzles first and hold on tightly wins only the strongest survive while the remaining 46 pups starves to death before they even get a fair shot at life it seems like there's no logical reason why this happens instead mother nature allows the tasmanian devil to give birth to 50 pups and then lets 92 of them die right off the bat purely for the sake of teaching them that sharing is for losers harp seals baby harp seals are unbelievably cute and you'll be pleased to learn that harp seal moms love these fuzzy little pups just as much as you do for a total of about 12 days that is during this period harp seal moms feed their babies non-stop and don't even take a break to fill their own bellies because pups are born without any blubber their mother's milk is 50 fat which allows the 20-pound newborns to pack on 5 pounds a day but once this intense feeding period stops so too does the mother child bonding after 12 days the emaciated female harp seal decides it's time to make a swift exit by leaving her baby to fend for themselves but unlike other species with such abrupt weaning periods the harp seal pups aren't nearly prepared enough for life on their own instead they're left stranded on the ice for the next month and a half with absolutely no food or protection and during this time the pups will lose half of their body weight without any resources to replenish it finally when they're about eight weeks old they'll be able to swim and are ready to start hunting for their own food but until that day comes they must endure a dangerous period of potential starvation being hunted by predators or drowning amid the melting ice all things considered it's no surprise that at least 30 percent of all harp seal pups die during their first year of life talk about absent parenting geez it's it's getting pretty intense up in here if you had to be raised by one of the bad parents we've seen so far which one would you pick let me know in the comments below but i warn you it's only going to get worse from here on out dracula ants now the word dracula alone should be enough to tell you that not much mother baby bonding is going on here but nothing can prepare you for the plight of the young dracula ant although these tiny insects have the fastest animal jaws in all of nature they ironically lack the ability to chew solid foods so worker ants in the colony rely on another source for their nutrition instead their own larva to get their fill they will go and harvest the fattest larva tearing them open and drinking their blood which they will later regurgitate for the queen this bloodthirsty behavior is known as larval hemolymph feeding that sounds pretty grim to me but you'll be surprised to learn that it could actually be much worse you see this ant's brand of cannibalism is classed as non-destructive meaning that while the larvae do get partially eaten they actually survive into adulthood some people say they've been left with emotional scars from their upbringing but in the case of the dracula ant i guess those scars manifest themselves in a much more permanent way christmas island red crab every year between october to december 50 million christmas island red crabs migrate from their jungle homes out to the coast to spawn their eggs into the sea in a spectacular event after the crabs mate the females lay about a hundred thousand eggs each they can only spawn eggs once a month with the tides and a special phase of the moon with such specific conditions required for their birth you'd think the resulting babies would be totally sacred or something but you'd be wrong the newly spawned baby crabs drift around at sea for the first month of their life and if they're lucky enough the currents bring them back to christmas island but if some of the spawning crabs decide to migrate late aiming for the same tide a month later a remarkably strange situation can occur pregnant female crabs coming down to the coast to spawn at the same time as last month's baby crabs can be met with a living red carpet coming back out of the water and heading back into the jungle and you might expect the pregnant ladies to stop and use their maternal instincts to help the newly hatched babies find their way home safely but instead they do this yep that mama crab is popping tiny babies into her mouth like crunchy red popcorn it's not uncommon for expectant crabs to stop and feast on newly hatched babies if they fancy a snack and more still mother crabs have also been known to eat their own young if they're hungry enough a study conducted in 2007 even found that there was little difference between crabs that had not carried eggs classed as non-ovigerous and ovigerous crabs who had recently carried eggs when it came to cannibalizing their own young sheesh i guess it really is a crabby crab world out there hamsters now if you thought these popular pets were nothing more than innocent little fluff balls then think again watching your female hamster coddle a litter of cute little pink babies can be an exciting time but don't be surprised if you check your cage one day to find some if not all of the babies missing and where do they disappear to mommy hamster's stomach that's where and not in a weird reverse pregnancy kind of way either she literally eats them it's a horrifying thought but hamsters are pretty well renowned for ingesting their own young there are mixed opinions about what might motivate them to commit such a heinous crime against hamster kind some believe it's because mother hamsters are malnourished after giving birth and need the extra nutrients others theorize that the babies are eaten so mom doesn't have to care for such a large number of kids considering each litter can contain up to 20 pups generally speaking though if a hamster is overwhelmed by stress and feels that caring for its own young is more than it can handle then it may choose the easy way out and eat them instead it seems like quite a leap but who knows what goes on inside those tiny brains if you're a proud hamster owner and your female hamster gets pregnant it's important to try and maintain a calm stress-free environment make sure she gets enough food too so she doesn't start looking at her own kids as a potential midnight snack koalas i'm sorry to say that i'm probably going to ruin the cutesy image you probably have of koalas a newborn baby koala called the joey looks like a little pink jelly bean it's totally hairless blind has no ears and is no more than two centimeters long relying on its sense of smell touch and strong forelimbs the joey makes its way from the birth canal to the pouch completely unaided where it attaches itself to its mother's teat the joey stays there for six to seven months until it develops ears and fur and opens its eyes but then from around 22 weeks baby koalas swap milk for a new kind of food called pap what's pap you ask well it's poop and not just any old poop specially made creamy extra wet poop this specialized poop helps allow the mother to pass on microorganisms present in her own digestive system to her joey which are essential to the digestion of eucalyptus leaves that will eventually become the main source of any koala's diet at first the baby leans out of the pouch on the mother's abdomen to feed on the pap and then gradually emerges to lie on mom's belly to feed as it grows up once the joey is old enough to ride on its mother's back it can finally graduate to eating fresh leaves and i bet that's a relief i can imagine it gets tiring being served the same old poop sandwich for lunch every day black eagles any mother with more than one child knows how draining it can be when siblings constantly squabble sometimes it's best to just let them wear each other out but most moms know when it's time to intervene and break things up unless you're a black eagle that is for these magnificent birds of prey which soar over forests in the hilly regions of tropical and subtropical southeast asia and southeastern china staying out of it seems to be the way forward in fact if a fight breaks out in the nest between two chicks mom will usually just sit and watch it happen with front row seats usually the feathered fight only ends when the stronger older chick ends up killing the younger sibling the least you'd expect in this situation is for the eagle mom to scold her child for literally murdering its younger sibling but no in many cases the mother and the surviving eaglet will then eat the remains of the slain young in celebration now listen i'm all for teaching kids important life lessons but surely there's a better way to learn about survival of the fittest hippopotamus although hippos can be fearsome creatures they're actually pretty decent parents most of the time female hippos called cows give birth once every two years usually to a single calf unsurprisingly mama hippos are usually quite protective of their offspring even though hippo babies can swim right away and can weigh 55 to 120 pounds which is about the weight of a large adult dog soon after the birth the mother and her baby will join up with the other cows and calves for protection against predators like crocodiles lions and hyenas but sometimes the real threat lies a little closer to home although shocking there have been several recorded cases of dominant male bulls in the group attacking and killing younger male hippo calves which they deem to be a threat to their dominance this breathtaking photograph captured by wildlife photographer adrian hershey in 2019 shows the moment an aggressive bull seized a newborn hippo in its crushing jaws sometimes several members of the pod will gang up on a calf while the mother stands by with no choice but to watch the horror unfold and so far research into why hippos sometimes turn on their own young shortly after being introduced to the pod is limited because these aggressive creatures are hard to study up close however some theorize that male hippos are particularly aware of overpopulation and the pressure that is placed on the pod every dry season as the amount of water dwindles in the water hole it turns out the saying one less mouth to feed is taken pretty seriously by these semi-aquatic mammals horses female horses or mares have a gestation period of at least 340 days which to anyone who's ever been pregnant before sounds like an awfully long time you might expect a mare to take it easy until her precious calf finally arrives but she actually passes the time in a very different way the moment the mayor gets pregnant she goes off and immediately engages in frisky activity with every stallion in the herd now i know this doesn't make much sense from an evolutionary perspective after all she is already pregnant but these frisky mares actually have an ulterior motive to all their fraternizing you see male horses are notoriously proud animals they hate competition so if they come across a foal that isn't theirs they usually kick it to death but they draw the line at killing their own kind they're not total monsters so the pregnant mare's goal is to mate with every stallion in the herd so that it becomes impossible for him to determine if the foal is theirs or not meaning they probably won't kick it to death but these crafty mamas also have a backup plan if they can't tick every male off their to-do list they'll just abort the pregnancy themselves scientists aren't exactly sure how this happens but it's thought to be the result of a natural chemical process within the mare if she senses that the full will be in danger from aggressive males fighting for dominance now there's something to think about next time you walk past a field of horses grazing peacefully fire ants if you thought the dracula ants had a brutal start in life just wait till you hear about fire ants in fact fire ants are lucky if they even make it to adulthood if they're born male that is gender is quite the hot topic among this ant colony while female ants do all the work including hunting foraging and caring for their young all the male ants do is eat mate and poop sound like anyone you know the only reason why the women keep them around is because they can't reproduce without them but this presents a problem having too many men around is a waste of resources and means there are only more lazy good for nothing mouths to feed to try and keep on top of things worker drone ladies won't hesitate to just kill any dudes they come across on site and this isn't just a random thing either the female worker ants will often embark on a systematic culling of all the males during the larval stage but this puts the female ants at odds with the queen because the species would inevitably die without any males around to try and maintain a good balance the queen will overwhelm the colony with male eggs while the female workers go on their murderous rampage eventually the women get tired and a few lucky males make it to adulthood maybe these radical feminist ants have gone a step too far giant pandas ever felt like your parent favors your sibling over you well just be glad you weren't born a giant panda these laid back creatures are famed for their cutesy cuddleness but they're also some of the worst parents in the animal kingdom when they're first born panda cubs are pretty helpless they're blind hairless weigh between three to five ounces and are about one nine hundredths the size of their mothers panda mamas often have twins but there's one small problem they almost never care for more than one cub instead the mom will choose the weaker of the two siblings and will start ignoring him or her in favor of the stronger sibling of course without its mom's love and protection the weaker cub will almost certainly die there are a couple of possible reasons why pandas adopt the whole survival of the fittest mindset firstly their diet since bamboo is notoriously low in nutrients it's near impossible for a mother to make enough milk to feed two cubs plus panda moms must keep their baby tight to their own body to maintain their body warmth and must hold them closely to their breast to nurse because mom has to do basically everything for her baby she simply doesn't have the resources to split that attention both ways so she makes the difficult decision to abandon one cub to increase the chances of the others survival thankfully though cubs abandoned in zoos are still cared for since the zookeepers don't have to worry about limited milk production seems like favoritism is the giant panda's forte komodo dragons komodo dragons can reach up to 10 feet in length and weigh more than 300 pounds making them the heaviest lizards on earth when a female is ready to mate she gives off a scent in her poop for males to follow once a male locates the female he scratches her back and licks her body and if she licks him back they mate pregnant females then lay about 30 eggs which they bury in the earth until they hatch eight months later while the eggs incubate in the nest the female may lay on the nest to protect them but absolutely no evidence of parental care for newly hatched komodos exists the tiny hatchlings are particularly vulnerable during the early stages of their life after they're born the babies often scramble to climb the nearest tree for safety only the strongest will make it while the weakest often fall victim to predators including other adult komodo dragons because komodo dragons have both male and female sex chromosomes females are able to reproduce asexually through a process called parthenogenesis but this process has one significant drawback it only produces suns and because parthenogenesis isn't komodo's preferred method of reproduction if there are no breeding males around when a mother komodo is in heat she will sometimes mate with her own children man these big lizards must be carrying around some serious childhood trauma if you had to be reincarnated as one of these animals from birth which one would you choose let me know in the comments below you guys should give this video a watch next it's about the weirdest things animals do thanks for watching guys

Channel: BE AMAZED

Views: 6,111,000

Rating: 4.8836684 out of 5

Keywords: beamazed, be amazed, top 10, worst animal parents, hippo eats child, hippo eats baby hippo, bird mother invades nest, fake bird baby, crab eats baby, crazy crab migration, crabs migrate to sea, panda mama, mother panda, shark babies, hamster eats children, koala eats poop, komodo dragon mother, baby komodo dragons, baby bird fight

Id: pd74HC45RaM

Length: 25min 25sec (1525 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021