Killer
whale
On
July 24, 2018, less than half an hour after the killer whale mother gave birth
to the cub in the sea, the cub unfortunately died. Since then, the mother of
the killer whale has been wandering in the sea carrying the cub body. Every
time the baby slips from the top of the head, she has to dive to catch the
baby.
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| Mother & calf behavior |
In
this way, the mother of a killer whale traveled for 1500 km with the baby almost
without food. Finally, after 17 days, the killer whale put down the child’s
body and completed a “long farewell.” This is an unprecedented mourning and the
most prolonged animal mourning behavior to date.
This
maternal love from the animal world is no less than humans. She doesn’t want to
admit that the child is gone, but after more than half a month of the parade,
she began to slowly accept the fact that the child has died, and finally chose
to let go. The famous American contemporary writer, Bar bara Kingsolf, once
said, “The power of motherhood trumps the laws of nature. “This Mother’s Day,
let’s take a look at the rules of affection in marine animals.
Harp seals
Harp
seals, also known as Greenland seals, are a kind of hardy marine mammals. Due
to the striking black markings on its upper body, which are shaped like a harp
or a horseshoe, the name of the harp seal came here. It is mainly distributed in
the polar region from the north of Atlanta to the Arctic Ocean.
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Harp seals are most popular for the white fur of their
pups. / Images By Anne Marie Helmenstine
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Greenland
seals are species born for ice, and cubs need a stable sea ice environment to
survive. Therefore, at the end of each winter, female seals move to
Newfoundland, Greenland, and the North Sea to breed offspring. The general
female gestation period is about 11.5 months. It breeds on ice floes from
February to April every year. There is 1 litter per litter. It is about 1
meter long at birth and weighs 11-12 kg.
The cub’s body hair is white, only the nose is black. Harp seals do not have a
fixed spouse. The baby seals never knew their father and raised their offspring
by mother seals.
In
about 10 to12 days, their mothers will not eat or drink. The female seals
forage 85% of the time every day to supplement their milk consumption and
breastfeed their pups the rest of the time. In the first week after seals are
born, they live entirely on mother’s milk and eat milk four or five times a
day. Female seals have ten times more milk than cows. A baby seal can triple
its weight after ten days, and a thick layer of fat will be formed to resist
the cold.
During
this period, the female seal loses about 3 kg of body weight every day. After
the lactation period, the female seal will abandon the cub, return to the sea,
and let it learn how to eat, swim, and grow into a true Greenland seal.
Emperor penguins
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| Parental care |
Emperor
penguins are the largest individual species in the penguin family. It is also the only penguin that breeds in
winter in Antarctica and is distributed in Antarctica and surrounding
islands. Curiously, female penguins are
only responsible for laying eggs, and male penguins are only responsible for
hatching.
Every year from March to April is the
courtship and breeding season for emperor penguins. After the female penguins lay their eggs,
they will be handed over to the male penguins and returned to the food-rich
ocean to recuperate their bodies that have not eaten for more than a month due
to childbirth. At the same time bring
food to the little emperor penguin that is about to break out of the shell.
During this period, the male emperor penguins
put the eggs on the soles of the feet. Between their legs and the abdomen, there
was a purple nursery bag covered with blood vessels. The environment is maintained at a
comfortable 36 degrees Celsius. The
emperor penguin incubation time is about 65 days. During hatching, male emperor penguins do not
eat, and spend most of their time in sleep, relying on the fat stored in the
body.
In the chapter of the BBC documentary "Dynasty: Emperor Penguins", the
film crew once shot a picture of a group of emperor penguins with fledglings
falling into an ice ditch in bad weather. It is not easy to cross this ice
ditch. Not to mention the baby chicks. In
order to save themselves, some emperor penguin mothers gave up their
children. Little Emperor Penguin step by
step wanted to follow her mother's footsteps but failed in the end. But there
are also some emperor penguin mothers who do not want to give up. She exhausted
her energy, put her mouth on the snow again and again, and fluttered her wings
vigorously. Finally, she took the cub to a safe area.
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