The Best Moms in the Animal Kingdom

Moms are really important to life on Earth, as evidenced by the fact that maternal care is fairly common across the animal kingdom. In most species, females produce fewer, larger, and costlier eggs than males do sperm. Therefore, it is usually beneficial to females to maximize the possible success of each one, sometimes by gestating them inside their own bodies (as mammals do), or incubating the eggs until they are ready to hatch (as birds do), or by providing prolonged protection, food and training until they are ready to take on the world for themselves. But there is still a lot of variation in how and how much each mother gives to her offspring. Here are some of the best moms in the animal kingdom:

1. The Endurance Prize goes to orangutans: Orangutan infants cling to their moms’ bellies non-stop for the first four months of their life and they continue to completely depend on their moms for the first two years for food and transport. Their moms will continue to carry them often until they are five and will sometimes continue to breastfeed them until they are eight! After that, the young still stay close to mom, learning from her and helping her until they are sometimes in their teens.

An orangutan mama and toddler. Photo by Mistvan at Wikimedia Commons.

2. The Provider Prize goes to the crab spider, Diaea ergandros: These crab spider moms create a brood chamber and nest out of eucalyptus leaves. They guard their eggs and then spiderlings, providing protection and prey for food. These moms also make extra eggs, just for their babies to eat, and finally, they give themselves… quite literally! The babies eat their mothers completely in a rare behavior called matriphagy.

3. The Pregnancy Prize goes to elephants: Elephants are pregnant for about 22 months… nearly two years! And a baby elephant is not light to carry around… by the time it is born, it will weigh nearly 250 pounds! Just the thought of it makes me uncomfortable. So why would elephant moms need to gestate their young for such an incredibly long time? It is thought that the long gestation is needed for the proper development of their brains, so they are born with the complex cognitive and social skills needed to survive in their herd.

An African elephant family plays in the hot sun. Photo by Bernard Dupont at Wikimedia Commons.

4. The Brooding Prize goes to a deep-sea octopus: Two years is a very long time to carry a developing baby inside your body, but some animals care for their developing empryos ouside of their bodies with a behavior called brooding. Although brooding may sound easier than pregnancy, it is not for the faint of heart. A deep-sea octopus was observed brooding her eggs in the Monterey Submarine Canyon off central California for 53 months… That is nearly 4 and a half years! And that whole time she did not eat, but instead guarded and aerated the water around her precious eggs.

A deep-sea octopus. Photo by NOAA at Wikimedia Commons.

5. The Multi-Generational Prize goes to humans: Many human moms are not only good mothers, but also good grandmothers. Grandparenting is extremely rare in the animal kingdom (the first documented case of grandparenting in non-humans was as recent as 2008) and human females excel at it. They provide care, advice, resources, lessons and hugs to increase the success of their offspring and grand-offspring… It’s amazing other species haven’t picked up on this amazing secret yet!

The best moms in the animal kingdom. Photos by Sarah Jane Alger.