10 Amazing Animal Parents Who Go Above and Beyond

As parents, we would do almost anything for our kids. We don’t sleep for months, we watch horrible TV shows like Caillou and Sponge Bob for hours on end, and many of us can’t remember the last time we had a shower without that symphony of “mamaaaa”s, mixed with the rhythmic hammering on the door. Most of us would even give our lives for our kids. But what we give our kids generally pales in comparison to what some other animal parents do for their offspring. So today, I thought I would make us all feel a little better about our parenting challenges (and give you some coffee table conversation) by highlighting what others in the animal kingdom go through to raise their kids. 

Here are 10 examples of the most extreme animal parents out there:

1. African Elephants

Feel like being pregnant lasted F-O-R-E-V-E-R? Well, an elephant pregnancy will make you feel better. Elephants are incredible animal parents. They gestate for 22 months! That’s the longest pregnancy of any known mammal. Even crazier, the baby is almost 250lbs (110kg) when it’s born! If you think an 8-pounder gave you some back problems and made it hard to sleep, try carrying around a 250lb baby for a couple of years. And squeezing out a baby that size…I shudder to think. On a positive note, elephants are awesome parents. They live in a matriarchal society, so all the females will help one another to protect the babies, teaching them to find food and surrounding them when there’s a threat. 

2. Kangaroos

In comparison to elephants, kangaroos are only pregnant for about 34 days. Lucky, right? Well, hold on there. A kangaroo baby is born at a really early stage of development. It actually looks like an embryo when it’s born! It doesn’t even have back legs yet, but it knows to climb up the mother’s fur and into her pouch where it latches onto a nipple to drink milk. The mother changes the content of the milk as the baby grows to make sure it has exactly what it needs.

The baby grows in the patch for another 9 months, after which it emerges from the pouch in a kind of second birth. It’s then called a Joey. But that’s not the end of their job as animal parents. The joey will return the the pouch and mom will carry it around for another year before it leaves her pouch for good. Sometimes, she even has another baby before the first joey emerges, and she ends up carrying two joeys in her pouch! I don’t know about you, but I sure wasn’t jumping around with even one 7lb baby inside of me.

I highly recommend his incredible 3 minute video from National Geographic of a newborn kangaroo becoming an adorable joey:

3. Mouthbrooding fish

If humans and kangaroos think pregnancy is hard, at least we get to use our mouths during the process! Not so much for several species of fish. 

This is a picture of a fish carrying his eggs in his mouth! That’s right, I said his! This species is a paternal mouthbrooding species, meaning that the male takes care of the eggs in his mouth and doesn’t eat until they hatch!

There are plenty of species where the mother is the mouthbrooder. African cichlids are one of the best-studied.

Mother cichlids will even shelter the fry after they have hatched! When mom senses danger, she uses behavioral cues to tell her fry to swim back into her mouth for protection.

4. Orangutans

If you suffered through breastfeeding, this one’s for you! A study showed that while women tend to aim to breastfeed for 1-2 years, the difficulties of the practice get the best of many. The average length of time women breastfeed is just 17 weeks. But orangutan mothers will not only carry their babies as they swing from tree to tree, they nurse their babies for 6 years! Not only that, if the baby is female, mom will continue caring for her and teaching her well into the teens. Since an orangutan lives about 35 years, she essentially spends a third of her life caring for a single child. So next time you feel like that toddler tantrum stage is taking forever, think about the poor orangutan. 

5. Seahorses

This one is for the dads out there. Parenting is often just as hard for dads as for moms, but as humans, the men at least get to escape the challenges of pregnancy. Not so if you’re a seahorse! When seahorses mate, they link tails and both change colors in a courtship ritual. The female will then deposit her eggs into a pouch inside the male. He provides the growing embryos with oxygen and food as they grow, and depending on the species, he can carry them anywhere from 14 days to 4 weeks. When the young seahorses are ready to be born, the pouch begins rhythmically contracting in what could be a 12 hour labor. Finally, the male ejects the babies. For smaller species, the male births 50-150 small seahorses, but for larger ones, he ejects as many as 1500!

Check out this cool 30 sec video of a male seahorse giving birth!

7. Clown Fish

Thanks to Disney Pixar, clown fish took center stage in Finding Nemo. Well, while some of their biology was wrong (Nemo’s dad would have turned into a girl after his mate died), the premise that clown fish are great parents was correct. 

The female lays strings of eggs on a rock and the male fertilizes them. As they grow over the next 7 days, the pair tirelessly fan the eggs with their fins to oxygenate them. During this time, they do not eat or rest!

8. Comb-crested jacanas

Here’s another one for the dads. While in most systems, including our own, the mom takes a major role in caring for babies, this isn’t he case for all animals. Sometimes, the mom leaves the job to the dads. Comb-crested jacanas can certainly compete for the award for the best animal dads. The female will lay her eggs in a floating nest. She’ll then leave the male to take on the role of a single dad. He’ll incubate the eggs, feed the chicks after they hatch, and he’ll even carry the nestlings with his wings if they are in danger!

Check out this post with pictures of a male jacana protecting his young.

8. Poison dart frogs

Females deposit their eggs in a dark, moist environment in the jungle. Both parents will help keep eggs wet, often by urinating on them. They then both contribute a lot of energy caring for their young, and when the eggs hatch, the parents will carry the tadpoles on their backs to a water source where they can continue to grow. These frogs are some devoted animal parents.

9. Hornbills

Sometimes pregnancy and child care can feel a bit isolating to a parent. But our experiences are nothing compared to hornbills. Hornbills nest in cavities that are extremely limited in nature. It’s not uncommon for another larger bird to come destroy eggs and babies to steal the cavity for themselves. Hornbills have a unique way to prevent this. Once the female lays her eggs, the male builds a mud wall to seal her in the cavity. He passes her food through a small hole in the wall while the eggs and chicks develop. Once the chicks get bigger, the female will break out and the reseal the chicks inside. Both parents continue to feed the chicks through a hole until they are ready to fledge. 

10. Emperor penguins

Finally, if parenting challenges have gotten you down, take a gander at the movie March of the Penguins. You’ll be feeling like a million bucks in a few minutes. Emperor penguins meet to breed on thick Arctic ice in April each year. The pairs mate, and after the females lay eggs, the female will then leave and travel up to 50 miles (80km) to the ocean where she can gather food.

The male stays with the egg, keeping it warm between his feet. During this time, he doesn’t eat at all! The babies hatch before the female returns, so the male feeds the baby with milk made from the last of his reserves. Finally, the female makes the 50 mile return journey and finds her mate and new baby using a special call. She’ll then use her food reserves to feed the baby while the male heads off to find food for himself. Both parents journey miles and starve themselves for their babies.

What’s the take-home?

Parenting is an adventure that comes with its challenges. When your toddler bursts in on you in the bathroom, when you’re jerked out of sleep by a 2am potty mishap, or even when you’re watching your kid go all-out Exorcist, you can take comfort in the fact that we are lucky to be human. Because other animal parents have it even harder. Happy parenting!