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The human males are not alone when it
comes to males caring for their young…
Emu
- the male sits on the eggs for up to 8 weeks.
Emperor Penguin the female penguin lays one egg but at this point her
nutritional reserves are exhausted and she must immediately return
to the sea to feed. Very carefully, she transfers the egg to the
male, who incubates the egg in his brood pouch for about 65 days
without food by surviving on his fat reserves.
His success depends entirely on his fat stores; if a male gets too
thin, he will abandon his egg and try to get back to the ocean. Big
fat males are consequently creatures of great worth and females have
been observed fighting over them.
If the chick hatches before the mother's return, the father sets the
chick on his feet and covers it with his pouch, feeding it a white,
milky substance produced by a gland in his esophageus.
Spotted Sandpipers (bird) – the males
will sit on the eggs for a 21-day incubation period and then tend
the fledglings for another 21 days. Females may offer some
assistance if the clutch is her last of the season, but she will be
quick to shirk her duties if an opportunity arises to take another
mate.
Grey Meerkats - in addition to feeding, grooming, and guarding their young,
will babysit them while females go out to hunt.
Male golden lion tamarins will take
over most of the parental duties by the fourth week after the birth
of their offspring, including grooming, carrying, and feeding the
young insects and other foods.
The male Red Fox supplies his vixen
with fresh food every four to six hours while she nurses her pups,
but he is equally dedicated to teaching his offspring survival
skills. Males will bury food near the den to train pups how to sniff
and forage and will play ambush games with them to teach self-defence.
Male Prairie Voles (small rodents),
diligently care for their young, covering them for warmth, grooming
them, and retrieving wandering.
Marine worms - a female will enter a male's burrow and lay up to 1,000
eggs, losing 85 percent of her body weight in the process. The male
fertilizes the eggs, then may eat what is left of his mate to
sustain himself during the three or more weeks he guards the eggs.
If uneaten, the female dies within a few days anyway
while males lives on to breed more than once.
Male sea spider reaches into a female's
ovary and extracts her egg mass with his third pair of legs. The
male then cradles the fertilized eggs against his belly until they
hatch, which takes as long as ten weeks.
Giant water bug. -
The female cements as many as 150 eggs onto the males back
and then departs. The male will carry this load for the next month,
aerating his cargo by performing elaborate deep knee bends and
warding off parasites by sunning himself at the water's edge. After
three weeks, the eggs will have tripled in size.
Splash Tetra (fish) , spawns on leaves
that overhang the water. The male and female leap out of the
water in unison and adhere to the underside of a leaf by spreading
out their fins, which allows the surface tension of the water to
hold them up for several seconds. A pair typically makes about ten
jumps to lay and fertilize about 100 eggs. Then the female goes on
her way while the male stays behind, flicking his tail to splash the
eggs about once a minute until they hatch several days later.
Betta, (Indonesian fish), the female releases her eggs into a male's curled
anal fin. After he fertilizes them, she sucks the eggs into her
mouth and returns them to the male, who then holds them in his mouth
for protection.
The male Hardhead Catfish carries up to
48 marble-size eggs in his mouth for 60 days! He doesn't eat for the
entire time.
Sea horses - The female seahorse lays
her eggs directly into the males pouch and males of some species
actually nourish the young.
Pouched Frog - that live in tropical
forests of Australia, the male carries about ten tadpoles in brood
pouches that open on either side of his groin. These pouches, which
are part of the frog's lymphatic system, extend along the side and
belly, and bulge as the tadpoles grow into frogs.
Northern Jacana (a bird) the female
defends a territory where as many as four males build nests on
floating plants. She lays up to five eggs in each nest, and the
males incubate them for four weeks and then defend the hatchlings
until they can fly. Female jacanas are quite a bit larger than the
males and dominate them completely.
All goes to
show we are not alone.
Sources:
Zoogoer; National Geographic; PBS; Wikipediea
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