Mothers in the animal kingdom work hard to protect and care for their young. Be amazed by their nurturing instincts. Here are just five examples of awesome animal mums.
Elephants
Image: A family of elephants in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. Getty Images.
Female African elephants and their calves stay together for their whole lives. Elephant families are matriarchal and the females of the herd all look after each other’s babies – this helps keeps them safe, but it also teaches older siblings how they will mother their own calves someday. Learning from adults is one of the many reasons why elephants should be left in the wild.
Pigs
Image: A sow and piglet on a high welfare farm in the UK.
Did you know newborn piglets learn to recognise their mother's voices by the time they are 36 hours old? Sows have been known to call their piglets to nurse with specific grunts, and piglets are so attached to their mother's they scream in distress when they’re separated from them.
Bears
Image: A mother named Epison and one of her cubs at our partner sanctuary in Romania
Mothers and cubs are extremely close; mothers will fight to the death to protect their young from predators.
Mothers teach cubs how to forage for food and protect themselves by climbing trees. The cubs also have great fun playing with their mother and siblings. Researchers have found that the more brown bear cubs play, the more likely they are to survive into adulthood.
Pythons
Image: A female python protecting her eggs
Parental care of eggs is relatively rare among snakes, but female pythons have been observed to tightly coil around their eggs throughout the incubation period. In cool climates, they shiver to generate heat and keep their clutch warm.
Orcas
Image: A pod of wild orcas (also known as killer whales)
Orcas, like elephants, live in a matriarchal society, where older females pass down knowledge and model specific behaviours to the younger members of their family. Orcas usually stay with their mother for life and there can be many generations in one pod. Research in the 1980s found that calves from the same mother form an extremely close bond and never separate for more than a few hours in their lifetime.
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