Mother's Day in the Animal Kingdom

Animals don't usually get too much attention on holidays unless you want to eat them.  I think it's fair to say that they do not "enjoy" holidays at all.  Turkeys do not like Thanksgiving, that is FACT.  Dogs do not like being dressed up as reindeer or makeshift Easter Bunnies.  Cats hate everything.

So while all of the great human moms in the world get lavished with attention on this one special day of the year, nobody ever thinks about animal mommies.  They gave birth, too.  Sometimes to multiple offspring at once, and they don't even stoop to fertility drugs like Octo-mom.  In the case of mammals, the babies almost always want to "eat" right away, which of course means suckling milk.  The mother JUST gave birth, and is already being harassed to provide breakfast.  That's why we flip everything around on Mother's Day and take our moms to Denny's.  Just try getting animals to conform to that system, though.  They won't.

If you are not a mammal, but want to be a mother anyway, you almost always have to lay eggs.

So again, that's why we go to Denny's.  Let someone else provide the food for once.

Okay enough being gross, let's talk about KANGAROOS.

Kangaroo moms are my favorite animal moms because of the pouch thing.  What a great system.  Plus it looks neat in cartoons.  Mothers cannot carry their children in their arms 24/7, especially if you have arms like a kangaroo has.  So nature, with help from GOD, had to make adaptations.  Mother alligators carry their newborn babies in their MOUTHS.  Mother turtles and snails will often sacrifice their owns shells to provide temporary lodging for their adult children after they finish college.


Are any animal mothers bad parents?  It depends what you mean.  Does eating your own young count?  Hamsters do that sometimes.  Ever have a bad night's sleep after eating something you probably shouldn't have?  Imagine how Mrs. Hamster must feel.  Plus, wow, that seems like a lot of CALORIES.  Don't hamsters usually only eat hamster food?  Hamster FOOD as opposed to HAMSTER food...or maybe that's backwards.  At any rate, I imagine they just "wheel off" the extra pounds.

Certain female spiders and scorpions will immediately devour their MATE upon becoming impregnated.  (Oh those pregnancy cravings!)  How do they know so soon, though?  What if the male scorpion was shooting blanks?  "Whoops-a-daisy!  Onto the next one."  Is the absence of a father figure good or bad for the babies?  Animal dads are almost always deadbeats.  They don't understand things like weekends or Christmas.

The word "MOM" would look so cool if a baby spider could spin it as a special Mother's Day web, or if a baby scorpion could pee it out in the form of scorpion poison.

Click HERE.