Martyr Mothers & Other Animal Parents Who Make The Ultimate Sacrifice For Their Babies

On Mother’s Day, as we talk about the supremely important role that our mothers (and other maternal figures) have played in our lives; it’s important to acknowledge that maternal emotions aren’t the sole kingdom of humans. Animals are very maternal too, sometimes to the point of self-destruction.

Here are a few animal mothers (and fathers who take on maternal responsibilities), who deserve a special mention for their extreme devotion to their babies:

Octopus

Octopi are semelparous .i.e. animals that give birth only once in their lives. Why only once you ask? Because they die right after they give birth.

Octopus eggs can take up to 10 months to hatch, depending on the species. When pregnant, the mother octopus finds a secluded cove to lay her eggs and then spends the entire gestation period never leaving the eggs’ side. She constantly blows a steady stream of freshwater on the eggs to keep them oxygenated and to get rid of parasites.

During this time she doesn’t leave the eggs to feed. The octopus momma starves herself to death. But it’s worth it in the end. Her martyrdom ensures that her thousands of babies hatch safely.

Sea Otters

Are you a swimmer? What stroke is your favourite?

It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t choose backstroke. Not many people like it. But, if you are a sea otter mum, then you may have no choice but to swim in backstroke – especially right after the birth of your baby.

Sea otter pups can’t swim right after birth. In fact, they don’t learn how to swim until they are 6 months old. So, mothers turn themselves into the pups’ personal paddleboard.

For the entire duration of 6 months, the sea otter mum places the pup on her chest and swims on her back. During this time, she doesn’t swim like she normally does – on her tummy.

If she needs to feed, the mother blows air into the pups’ fur to make the pup buoyant. As an added measure, she wraps a blade of kelp around the pup’s body as a life jacket to make sure the pup stays afloat.

This constant backstroke swimming can take a lot out of the mother and she needs to feed at least 25% of her body mass each time she goes to forage for food.

Dolphins & Orcas

The most-fun mammal of the sea and her deadly cousin are two mothers who sacrifice a lot for their babies.

Both dolphin and killer whale (orca) newborns don’t sleep for an entire month after they’re born. Not even a wink of sleep.

Since they can’t leave their calves unattended in the dangerous waters, dolphin and orca mothers stay awake 24/7 for the entire month.

Most other species sleep for long periods of time right after birth. So, this wakefulness is something extremely rare. Studies show that lack of sleep can kill in some animals – rats being an example.

In humans, this type of insomnia is plain torture. I mean, can you imagine what sleep deprivation will do to you right after your delivery? Not to mention the added stress of a wailing baby. Plus, just like rats, we too can die due to sleep deprivation.

But, dolphin and orca moms take this in their stride and remain awake and alert as long as their babies need them to.

Bottlenose dolphin (Source)

Killer whale (Orca) (Source)

Emperor Penguins

Emperor penguin dads are the model fathers. You could even say that they’re better parents than mothers.

You see, for four bone-chilling months, Emperor penguin fathers quite-literally stand guard over their developing eggs. The penguins have a small pouch in their body where they can store the egg, keeping it warm and protected from the cold Antarctic snowstorms.

This is no mean feat. Temperatures in the Antarctic can drop below (-4) degrees Fahrenheit, and sometimes go as low as (-30) degrees Fahrenheit! For four straight months, Emperor penguin dads protect the eggs from the freezing cold, making sure that the temperature doesn’t drop below 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

During this gestation period, the dads don’t go out to feed and brave the storm together as a starving community. Around July, the eggs start to hatch, the mothers return from their feeding session and finally, dad gets to shake off the thick blanket of snow and go out to feed.

Orangutans

If you thought human parents had it tough raising their kids till the age of 18, you’ve got it wrong.

Orangutan mothers have it worse.

Female orangutans are single parents. Apart from donating sperm, the fathers play no role in the upbringing of the baby. It is the mother who needs to do everything, right from birth. And let me tell you, it isn’t easy raising a baby orang.

Orangutan babies are just like human babies – utterly and completely vulnerable. They don’t have any skills and need constant care. The mother orang nurses the baby and carries it around on her back for 3-4 years. In some cases, the baby nurses from the mother and uses her as transportation until he/she is 7 years old. Can you imagine if your kid did that to you?

Once the baby is weaned, the momma orang teaches it to climb trees, to identify edible fruits, to avoid predators, and sometimes (if the baby is a girl) to raise her own baby.

Overall, the baby orangutan spends 15-16 years with its mum. Things don’t get easier when organ babies reach adolescence and adulthood. Orangutans experience massive separation anxiety after getting separated from their children. So, you can imagine how the orang mother may be feeling once its time for her child to leave the nest.

Thankfully, some orangutan daughters do visit their mothers, even after leaving home. So there’s some hope after all.

So, before we end Mother’s Day 2020, let us give a big shoutout to all the moms out there – human and animal.

-NISHA PRAKASH

(P.S: Featured Image: World Wildlife Fund)

What Do We Know About the Longest Animal In The World?

Before we get to the blog, I’d like to make an announcement. This blog – Stories So Wild –  has been renamed as “Artfully Wild “. The site will no longer be available at the website www.storiessowild.com. Instead, to access this blog, please visit https://artfullywild.wordpress.com/ . Thank you for your co-operation.

 

Sometime in the second week of April, I came across a video on Instagram,  which claimed to be about the world’s longest animal.

No, it isn’t the giraffe – although that’s the tallest. It’s not the blue whale either – this is the largest animal in the ocean.

The longest animal in the world is a newly-discovered animal that belongs to a category of animals called “Siphonophores”.

Say hello to the sea’s longest siphonophore

Siphonophores are Hydrozoans i.e. predatory animals that live in colonies in the world’s saltwater bodies. They have tiny tentacles that stick out of their bodies, which they dangle out into the water. Any unsuspecting sea creature that brushes past these tentacles is instantly paralyzed and starts to sink. The Siphonophores then wrap themselves around the body of the paralyzed animal and consume the animal.

Unlike other animals, Siphonophores aren’t a single organism. They are in fact a colony of multiple deep-sea creatures that fuse together and live as one single unit.

Don’t get me wrong, Siphonophores aren’t a colony of different sea creatures; they’re actually a colony of clones. They’re zooids – animals that arise out of other animals asexually – through the process of division or multiplication. All of the zooids in a Siphonophore are physiologically similar (having been part of another zooid and then separated into a separate entity). They live, breathe, move and eat the same way. These zooids fuse together purely because it’s easier and safer to survive this way.

There are an estimated 175 species of Siphonophores in the world today. The newly-discovered Siphonophore is believed to be the longest of its kind and as-of-now, the longest animal in the world.

Here’s what we know about it:

• The Siphonophore was found off the coast of Western Australia, somewhere deep in one of the island’s underwater canyons, at 630 meters below sea level.
• The creature is an estimated 150 feet i.e. 46 meters long. That’s about 0.8110 times the height of The Leaning Tower of Pisa. In animal comparison, the Siphonophore is twice the length of a blue whale!
• The animal was found floating along the water, probably having been carried upwards from the depths of the ocean because of currents.
• The Siphonophore lay in a spiral-like formation, resembling a gigantic net that had been cast into the deep sea.
• The creature was spotted using a remotely operated vehicle named Sebastian, that had been sent underwater to collect samples of seawater and animals from Western Australia’s as-yet-unexplored and protected deep waters.

Here’s a video of the new discovery: 

That’s not all:

The world’s longest animal wasn’t the only discovery made in Western Australia in April 2020; although it was the crowning glory. Scientists also found other creatures like a long-tailed sea cucumber, a giant hydroid, a new species of octopus squid and glass sponges.

This region of the Earth’s waters is a mystery to humanity. No one knows how deep the water goes or what lies at the bottom. For now, there are many not-for-profit organizations who are commissioning deep-sea projects to explore this bizarre and seemingly impenetrable paradise.

 

 

-NISHA PRAKASH

 

(Image credits: https://www.livescience.com/longest-animal-ever-underwater-australia.html) 

5 Fun Facts About Dugongs

Dugongs are marine animals which belong to the family Dugongidae. They are part of the order called Sirenia aka sea cows, which also includes the manatees. They can be found dispersed across the Indian ocean, Pacific ocean and the region between East Africa & Australia. 

Here are five facts about them: 

1. Apart from manatees, dugongs are the only marine animals that are strictly herbivorous, eating sea grass, weeds and aquatic plants. All other marine animals are omnivorous. 
2. The closest relative of dugongs is the Steller’s Sea Cow, which was driven to extinction in the mid-1700s.
3. A dugong’s gestation period lasts one year and females give birth once every 3-7 years. 
4. Although they resemble seals and walruses in appearance, dugongs are actually more genetically similar to elephants. That’s because these animals evolved from the same ancestor. 
5. According to the IUCN Red List, dugongs have a “Vulnerable” classification; meaning they are very vulnerable to becoming extinct if conservation efforts aren’t set in place. As of today, less than 7500 dugongs are alive in the world.  

 

Bonus

The name “dugong” comes from the Malay word “duyung“, which means “Lady of the Sea“. Before scientists officially documented this species, sailors & fishermen out at sea assumed dugongs (and their cousins, the manatees) to be mermaids, sirens and other mystical creatures. This was predominantly because of the way these animals swam.

Dugongs and manatees rise out from the underneath the water and perform tail-stands (where they stand & balance on the tip of their tails) when coming up for air. This prompted sailors & fishermen to assume they were the mythical sea-dwelling creatures they grew up hearing about. 

 

Dugong

Manatee

 

A representative image of a Steller’s Sea Cow – the extinct relative of the dugong (image source)

 

Some more facts about dugongs (image source: pinterest)

 

Video: Now let’s see a dugong in action

 

 

-NISHA PRAKASH 

P.S: Featured image: National Geographic; Dugong vs Manatee: Indigoscuba

5 Fun Facts About Jellyfish

1. A jellyfish’s body is made of 98% water. They can dehydrate and disappear if they wash up on shore on a very hot & sunny day. 
2. Jellyfish have the ability to clone themselves. If injured or cut in half, a jellyfish will heal itself and then clone itself to create two healthy organisms. 
3. The Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish found in the Mediterranean Sea is capable of reversing its age once it reaches adulthood. How? When the Turritopsis nutricula becomes an adult, it starts changing its fully-grown cells into infant cells, essentially becoming a baby. This way, it remains young always. It is the only recorded animal to be completely and truly immortal. 
4. In early 2000, fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico caught a monster-size jellyfish – almost 70 feet long and with sharp, extremely poisonous tentacles. This jellyfish was pink in colour and had never been sighted before. Scientists dubbed it the “Pink Meanie” and it is now one of the rarest and the second largest species of jellyfish in the world, reaching record lengths of 100 feet. The only jellyfish larger than this is the Lion’s mane jellyfish, which stands at 120 feet (that’s 3.5 times longer than a telephone pole!). 
5. Jellyfish are more than 500 million years old, making them older than dinosaurs. Their ancient legacy can be attributed to their lack of a sophisticated physical body. Jellyfish don’t have any organs and only use their skin and a simple network of nerves to live. These combined make them very less physically demanding, requiring less to survive.

Bonus

In 1991, NASA sent adult jellyfish into space on board the Columbia space shuttle. The objective was to find out whether space-born babies can survive a life both in space and on the Earth. It turns out that the baby jellyfish born in space developed extreme vertigo when they returned to Earth and most never learned how to swim in Earth-water after their extraterrestrial stint, because their newborn bodies never learnt how to recognise and deal with gravity. Researchers believe human babies too may face similar challenges if they are born in space. This makes relocation to Mars (or any space-bound journey) all the more challenging for humans. 

Video: The world’s largest jellyfish has a very small, but very deadly predator – Anemone. Watch as this giant is ripped to shreds by a hundred little arms. 

Turritopsis nutricula – the immortal jellyfish

Box jellyfish – the most venomous jellyfish on the planet. About 30 human deaths are reported in the Philippines alone each year. Since 1954, there have been 5,568 recorded human deaths caused by box jellyfish.

Portuguese Man O’ War – often confused for a jellyfish, is actually a ‘siphonophore’, an animal that is made up of a collection of smaller animals that have a symbiotic relationship.

-NISHA PRAKASH 

P.S: Featured image: Fried egg jellyfish – they live for only six months, born in the summer and dying in the winter. 

5 Fun Facts About Minke Whales

1. Minke whales have two V-shaped blow-holes on their heads. They can hold their breath up to 15 minutes.
2. Minke whales are very shy and typically swim alone. But they are also curious and can be spotted swimming up to ships and looking up at people.
3. The killer whale is the minke whale’s natural enemy.
4. Minke whale pregnancies last 11 months long and calves spend up to 5 years with their mothers.
5. Minke whales live up to 50 years of age.

 

Bonus:

Minke whales are the second smallest whales on the planet, measuring only 24 feet in length and weighing just under 4.3 metric tonnes. This is just a fraction of the world’s largest whale, the blue whale, which swims at 98 feet in length and weighs 180 metric tonnes.

Size of a Minke whale compared to other whales

 

A killer whale attacking a Minke whale

A pod of Minke whales

 

-NISHA PRAKASH