Sometimes, children feel upset with their parents when their requests are denied or when they are pressured to do something, such as studying or being restricted from certain behaviors.
Most young people do not understand the reasons behind their parents' actions until they grow older, get married, and have children of their own, at which point they truly grasp the meaning of being a mother or father.
Parental emotions and the fear for their children’s well being are traits that most animals share with humans. However, some animals lack these emotions for one reason or another.
Harp seal pups are among the most beautiful baby animals you can ever see. After a pregnancy lasting more than 11 months, the mother usually gives birth to a single pup.
From the moment it is born, the mother takes full care of it, protecting and nursing it continuously.
However, this care lasts only for 12 days no more. After this period, the mother abandons her helpless pup, leaves, and never looks back.
Harp seal milk is extremely rich in fat, containing about 50%, while human breast milk has a fat content ranging from 3% to 5%.
This high fat concentration helps seal pups endure freezing temperatures and rapidly gain weight in a short period.
A seal pup's weight increases from just 9 kilograms at birth to 36 kilograms by the time its mother leaves, meaning it gains more than 2 kilograms per day.
By the time the pup reaches 12 days old, the mother’s bond with her offspring comes to an abrupt end. She leaves it alone and returns to the water in search of food, never coming back to it again.
Amazingly, harp seal pups cannot swim or hunt until they are about two months old. This means that a 12-day-old pup must survive for six weeks without food while avoiding predators and the risk of drowning.
Approximately 30% of each generation of harp seal pups fail this extremely early survival test and do not make it.
During this time, the mother has already begun a new reproductive cycle. As for the fathers, they leave immediately after mating, playing no role in raising the pups.
In myths and folklore, the stork is famously known as the bird that delivers babies to newlyweds.
However, in reality, it is one of the worst animals when it comes to caring for its young. The mortality rate among stork chicks is extremely high, and the main reason behind this is the mother.
The mother stork often eliminates one of her chicks to conserve food and increase the survival chances of its siblings.
This is not done through simple neglect or withholding food but can involve actively striking the chick and throwing it out of the nest.
Despite the harshness of this behavior, it is quite common among certain bird species.
However, in most cases, chick mortality results from the mother’s neglect or from one sibling killing another.
Yet, for a mother to deliberately throw her own chick out of the nest or beat it to death is extremely rare not just among birds but in the entire animal kingdom.
The Leopard Tree Iguana is the common name for a type of iguana found in the Chilean Andes.
This reptile species exhibits a very peculiar behavior toward its young during the first 48 hours of their lives.
Initially, the mother cares for her hatchlings with great affection. However, once the 48-hour mark passes, she abandons them and leaves behind a farewell gift a pile of feces.
According to reptile expert Stanley Fox, this unusual farewell gift is not only edible and nutritious for the hatchlings but also contains essential gut microbes.
These microbes are crucial for enabling the young iguanas to digest fruits, leaves, and flower petals later in life.
However, this fecal gift is not the mother’s only contribution.
Before leaving, she seals her offspring inside their shelter to protect them from predatory birds. With this final act, her role as a mother comes to an end.
Once the young iguanas grow strong enough, they dig their way out and free themselves from their confinement.
For Tasmanian devil babies, the difference between life and death comes down to a race a 7-centimeter sprint where only the first four to reach the finish line survive.
The Tasmanian devil is a marsupial native to Australia, known for giving birth to a large number of offspring, typically between 20 and 30 at a time.
However, the mother has only four teats inside her pouch.
This means that only the first four newborns to crawl the 7-centimeter distance to the pouch secure a teat, allowing them to feed and be nurtured by their mother while the rest do not survive.
As for the rest of the newborns, they become part of the high mortality rate among Tasmanian devil offspring,
which reaches up to 90% of total births. But, dear reader, you might wonder: why doesn’t the mother care for more of her young by nursing them in turns?
The exact reason for this remains unknown. However, one possible explanation is that the newborns who win the race to the pouch have proven their strength and are therefore the most deserving of their mother’s care.
The large and bulky appearance of a panda that you see in photos and videos is nothing like its form at birth.
An adult panda weighs around 140 kilograms, whereas at birth, it weighs less than 140 grams sometimes even under 100 grams.
At this stage, panda cubs are blind, hairless, and entirely dependent on their mother’s care.
Unlike most newborn animals, a panda cub cannot even crawl to its mother to nurse. Instead, the mother must pick it up and feed it herself.
Typically, pandas give birth to two cubs but deliberately abandon one.
Some may assume this behavior stems from the panda’s famously lazy nature, as if the mother finds it easier to care for just one rather than both.
Caring for newborn panda cubs is an extremely challenging task, especially during the first days and months of their lives.
In the initial days after birth, the mother cannot even leave her cubs to eat or drink. Additionally, bamboo the panda's primary diet lacks sufficient nutrients to produce enough milk for two cubs.
Ultimately, the mother is forced to choose just one, usually the stronger of the two, to nurse and care for, while the other is left to its fate.
One notable case involved a panda named LiLi at a research center in China. Like most pandas, she instinctively chose to care for only one of her two newborn cubs.
To ensure both cubs received proper care, researchers devised a clever strategy.
They distracted LiLi with honey while secretly swapping the cubs taking the one she was nursing and replacing it with the other.
LiLi, believing she was only caring for a single cub, continued to nurture the one in front of her.
Researchers repeated this process about ten times a day, allowing both cubs to receive enough milk and maternal care to grow and thrive.
6- Adetomyrma venatrix
The Dracula ant, found in Australia and Southeast Asia, gets its name from its eerie habit of drinking the blood of its own larvae.
Despite having the fastest bite in the entire animal kingdom, it lacks the ability to chew solid food.
For this reason, worker ants in the colony gather the larvae their own offspring and drink their blood.
They then regurgitate it for the queen, allowing her to feed on the blood of the young.
Surprisingly, the larvae do not necessarily die from this process. The worker ants do not completely drain them; instead, they make a small incision and drink just enough blood.
Afterward, the larvae are able to survive and continue developing.
The hippopotamus is considered one of the most dangerous animals in the entire animal kingdom.
This is not only due to its massive physical strength or its incredibly powerful bite one of the strongest in the animal world but rather because of its unpredictable temperament.
The hippopotamus is known for its short temper, nervous disposition, and highly unpredictable behavior, especially during the dry season.
Although it is classified as a herbivore, hippos have been observed feeding on meat, scavenging animal carcasses, and even engaging in cannibalism.
Despite the fact that hippo mothers are typically very protective of their young, a rare incident was recorded where a mother neglected her calf and prematurely introduced it to a group of adult hippos.
Tragically, instead of accepting the calf, the adults attacked and devoured it.
The worst parents in the animal kingdom are known as brood parasites species that rely on others to incubate and raise their young.
One of the most notorious examples is the brown-headed cowbird, a bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species, often unrelated ones.
Amazingly, brown-headed cowbirds do not target a specific bird species but instead deceive over 250 different species into raising their young.
The father also plays a role in this deception by distracting the host birds and luring them away from their nests, giving the mother the opportunity to sneak in and lay her eggs among the host's own clutch.