Father’s Day is almost here! It’s the perfect time of year to celebrate our favorite dads. But while we know all of the great things that an awesome human dad does for his kids, what about all of the animal dads out there? Here are just a few of our favorite wild and wonderful animal fathers, courtesy of our award-winning children’s magazines!
Giving a Hand with Their Mouths!
Despite the rather intimidating-sounding name, red devil cichlids seem like pretty nice guys. Unlike most fish, who don’t really form conventional family groups, these Central American fish are quite involved fathers. One of their chief responsibilities? Keeping the little ones from swimming too far away from the rest of the school!
You might wonder how fish help keep babies in line. After all, they don’t have arms or legs to steer and guide them. Believe it or not, they use their mouths! Daddy red devil cichlids simply gulp their wayward children into their mouths and spit them back out again in safer waters!
Cichlids aren’t the only animal fathers who carry their children in their mouths. Darwin’s frogs have a unique method of protecting their young. Once their embryos begin developing– as many as 20 or 30 at once– male Darwin frogs pick them up with their tongues and keep them in their throats. As the embryos grow and hatch, they actually prevent their dads from croaking! When the babies are big enough to fend for themselves, they crawl right out of their dad’s mouth and hop away.
Feathered Fathers
Some birds are very protective, dedicated fathers to their young. Two of our favorites are great hornbills and emperor penguins!
Great hornbills go to extreme lengths to cater to their young families. After a mother hornbill lays her eggs in a hollow tree, the father hornbill plasters up the opening with natural materials like dirt and chewed up tree bark to prevent predators from getting to their eggs. He does such a thorough job that the mother hornbill only has a tiny opening big enough for her beak. That means that she has to stay in the nest with her babies while the father hornbill is solely responsible for finding food and water and bringing it to his family! It sounds exhausting for both parents– but we guess that devotion is what makes great hornbills so great!
After a mother emperor penguin lays her egg, it must stay warm in the chilly Antarctic climate! Luckily, the penguins have developed a handy, if incredibly demanding, solution. The father penguin keeps the egg incubated on top of his feet for two months, nestled under a warm flap of skin. The father stays huddled together with his fellow dads, all working together to keep their eggs toasty. He doesn’t even eat or drink! Instead, he lives off of his fat reserves from the previous year. When the egg hatches, the penguin chick stays with Dad and he cares for it for the earliest days of its life. Only then does mama penguin return to parenting duty!
On Babysitting Duty
Have you ever heard of a gelada? It’s a large, impressive-looking monkey similar to a baboon. (There’s one at the very top of this article!) Geladas live in a highly complex social structure. An average family unit consists of multiple females and babies, but only one breeding male. To make up for this disparity, some male geladas also live in bachelors-only groups. But that doesn’t mean that all geladas are breeding males or part of the “boys only” club.
When a formerly dominant male gets challenged and kicked off of his throne, sometimes he sticks around as part of his old family. While he’s no longer responsible for breeding, he may still have plenty of kids running around. He takes on a new responsibility: babysitter to the youngsters over 6 months old. No longer clinging onto their moms full-time, these babies are more independent and keen to roam around. Daddy geladas help make sure they stay safe– sometimes even against the new dominant male.
Dads Make the Best Teachers
Red foxes aren’t just good at protecting their young. They also make wonderful teachers! Similarly to the hornbills we talked about earlier, father foxes wait hand and foot (or… paw and paw?) on mother foxes and their babies. Fox kits are virtually helpless and can’t leave their nice warm den for about a month after birth. Their mothers stay in the den with them, which means it’s up to their fathers to bring food for the family– which they do every four to six hours!
Once the babies are old enough to venture outside the den, their clever dads help them learn how to hunt for food on their own. They start by covering leftover meat with detritus like twigs and leaves. The babies sniff out the meat and learn to uncover it! It’s almost like an Easter Egg hunt for the baby foxes. As the babies grow, father foxes taper off the amount of food they provide for their families, encouraging them to be more independent and seek out prey on their own. Thanks to the careful efforts of fox fathers, the babies are well-prepared to provide for themselves!
What’s your favorite animal dad? We want to hear all about them!
