Unusual Parenting Habits in the Animal Kingdom

Male seahorses take eggs from females into a brood pouch fertilize them and birth up to 2000 babies after weeks.

Cuckoos lay eggs in other birds’ nests tricking foster parents into raising their chicks often at the expense of the host’s own.

Male Darwin’s frogs swallow eggs keeping them in vocal sacs until froglets emerge a unique paternal role.

Taita Mountain caecilians allow hatchlings to peel and eat their nutrient-rich skin a rare maternal sacrifice.

Adetomyrma ants in Madagascar chew holes in larvae to drink their haemolymph yet the young survive to grow.

Malleefowl build large mounds of decomposing vegetation to incubate eggs leaving chicks to hatch and fend for themselves.

Titi monkey fathers in South America carry and care for babies while mothers mainly nurse reversing typical roles.

Giant Pacific octopus females stop eating for up to six months fanning eggs until they hatch then die exhausted.

Formica selysi ants stack their buoyant larvae at the bottom of living rafts to float over water during floods.

Female crocodiles gently transport their young in their mouths to water protecting them from predators early on.