Mothers in the Animal Kingdom

[bos]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCO4Dbgsd8w&feature=related"]YouTube - mothering2[/ame]

Pretty amazing stuff. The leopard and the baboon was weird to me. The leopard kills the mother baboon and then took pity and nurtured the newly orphaned baboon. Its almost like the leopard said "sweet, dinner......oh crap it had kids."

 

[price26]

The leopard occurrence is pretty amazing. The other ones don't surprise me so much.

 

[CRcyclone6]

that was weird with the leopard. she prob wanted to fatten the little thing up for later.

 

[bos]

that was weird with the leopard. she prob wanted to fatten the little thing up for later.

women.

 

[keepngoal]

that was weird with the leopard. she prob wanted to fatten the little thing up for later.

women.

More like Hansel and Gretel. :no:

-keep.

 

[Phaedrus]

You know the book/movie "Jurassic Park?" The archeologist portrayed in that is a Professor from Montana State University who has written a thesis that even with dinosaurs, babies are born "cute" by biological design for this very purpose.

According to him, the foreshortening of features was present in dinosaurs as well as mammals, and serves no practical purpose, except to make babies appear to be attractive, so that mothers will love them. And possibly not eat them, if they were carnivorous cross-species.

I used to have a copy of that paper somewhere.

 

[bos]

You know the book/movie "Jurassic Park?" The archeologist portrayed in that is a Professor from Montana State University who has written a thesis that even with dinosaurs, babies are born "cute" by biological design for this very purpose.

According to him, the foreshortening of features was present in dinosaurs as well as mammals, and serves no practical purpose, except to make babies appear to be attractive, so that mothers will love them. And possibly not eat them, if they were carnivorous cross-species.

I used to have a copy of that paper somewhere.

Only in mammals though right? Birds, reptiles, and amphibians dont seem to follow this code much. They protect their young but have no problem snatching someone elses.

 

[Phaedrus]

Only in mammals though right? Birds, reptiles, and amphibians dont seem to follow this code much. They protect their young but have no problem snatching someone elses.

Currently only in mammals. But the reason he commented on it is that baby dinosaurs ALSO had mammalian-like foreshortening of features, which suggest dinos possessed this mechanism as well.

 

[bos]

Currently only in mammals. But the reason he commented on it is that baby dinosaurs ALSO had mammalian-like foreshortening of features, which suggest dinos possessed this mechanism as well.

Very strange. Would wonder why dinosaurs had this going and then evolved into what they are now.

 

[Phaedrus]

Very strange. Would wonder why dinosaurs had this going and then evolved into what they are now.

A theory I've seen is that birds, which are dinosaurs current ancestor (not reptiles) have adapted a different survival strategy. Whereas mammals depend on "cute" as a "protective" survival strategy so that as many as possible survive, birds (and reptiles, FWIW) have an "elimination" strategy that ensures only the strongest survive. In fact, with birds, there is an over-awkward phase that actually eliminates all but the best examples of the type.

It's interesting stuff. Not my field, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[CyinCo]

That cat can't be producing enough milk to feed that fawn.

"Can you milk me, Focker?"