Good Dads and Not-So-Good Dads in the Animal Kingdom

Good Dads and Not-So-Good Dads in the Animal Kingdom

By David Manly and Lauren Reid | Jun 19, 2011 06:00 AM

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Happy father’s day!

First off, to every father out there (biological or not), this is the time where we stand up and say thank you. We may not always show it, but we love you and appreciate everything you have done for us thus far.

Today is also the day where we celebrate the uniqueness of our fathers, as no two dads are alike. In fact, there are many different types – the “cool” father, the “don’t get on the wrong side of me” pop, and of course the “don’t tell your mother” dad.

It is not just in humans that fathers show such a wide degree of parenting styles, as the same is true in the animal kingdom.

The thing is, the role of being a father is often overlooked in many animals – they deposit their sperm and leave, their job complete, and leave the rest of it up to the female. While it may often be the case that the biggest role an animal father has in their offspring’s life is the sperm they donate, some animal dads do go the extra mile and exceed all expectations. However, let us first look at some dads who are, quite frankly, not the greatest role models out there.

Deadbeat Dads

Lions

Lions are regal animals, and not just in a Disney’s The Lion King sort of way, but they act calm no matter the situation and manage to look damn impressive doing it.

But the funny thing is, contrary to popular culture, male lions do not take an active role in raising their children. In fact, they are pretty lazy.

The female lions in the pride do all the hunting and killing for the family unit, with the male defending his territory against intruders and scavengers. All the male does is stand there are look tough, and maybe growl or roar every now and then.

Trouble arises when his dominance is threatened and he engages in a battle with another male. If he loses control of his pride, his offspring will be in trouble because one of the first things the new male will do is kill all the cubs that were reared by the other male. This is done because female lions do not become sexually receptive again until their cubs mature or die.

Therefore, as horrible as it may seem, the only way the usurper male can create offspring is to make the females receptive to his advances by any means possible. It is “survival of the fittest” at its best.

Grizzly Bears

It must be tough being a bear.

They’re cute, cuddly and portrayed in so many children’s movies and television as friendly that people tend to forget how fierce they actually are. Suffice to say, they are not all loveable oafs like Winnie the Pooh.

Male grizzly bears have a huge territory, which can exceed over 3,000 square kilometers, which makes finding a mate extremely difficult. But, thanks to a male’s sensitive sense of smell and a little luck, eventually a male and female will meet, mate and make little cubs.

However, when times are tough and food is scarce, grizzly bear males have been known to go after and kill any cub in his range (even his own).

Unlike lions, this killing of cubs occurs without a challenger usurping the dominant male, and scientists were baffled as to the explanation. However, recent research may indicate that since bears are opportunistic hunters, they will take advantage of any food source to help them survive, whether it be berries, fish or their own young.

Okay, so some dads occasionally eat their babies through an evolutionary prerogative. But don’t feel too disheartened; now that the really bad dads are out the way, it gives us a perfect opportunity to take a warm-and-fuzzy look at some of the most admirable fathers in the animal kingdom.

The Stay-at-Home Dads

Marmosets

The female of these adorable little primates usually gives birth to twins, which can take its toll on any mother. The ordeal of pregnancy on the female is a rough one, as the newborns can account for over 25 per cent of her body weight! That would be like a human female giving birth to a 40-pound baby.

Understandably, after that ordeal (in addition to providing milk to the newborn), the female needs a break.

Luckily, this is where dad comes in!

Almost immediately after birth, the marmoset father grooms and licks the newborn to give the female time to recuperate. This is extremely important, as female marmoset can become pregnant again only two weeks later!

Rheas

These large flightless birds are super-dads who have no need for any help from mom. In fact, the sole male in the family group of up to a dozen females will be the sole incubator of the over 50 eggs for up to 40 days.

The male rhea will then chase anything, including females, away from the hatched chicks and raise them completely on his own.

What a guy.

The Teachers

Ostriches

There are many things that are peculiar about ostriches: their big eyes, the impressively large wingspan and the sheer size of their eggs. But one thing that most people are not aware of is that ostriches participate in true tag-team parenting.

After a female lays her eggs, the parents take turn incubating them: the female during the day, and the male at night. Zoologists believe that the male gets the night shift because, with his darker coloring, he will be less visible to predators and therefore be able to protect the nest better than the female.

Once the eggs hatch however, the male’s job has only just begun. He will fervently defend the hatchlings from predators, as well as teach them to feed. Not bad for an animal that many people still believe sticks their heads in the sand at any sign of trouble (for the record, they don’t).

Red Foxes

When you imagine a picture-esque animal dad, a red fox is not what springs to mind. They can be inquisitive, shy, mean and territorial. But, like most things, you have to look deeper than that.

After a female red fox gives birth, she must stay in her den in order to feed her young and keep them warm. Therefore, it is up to the male to venture out every six hours or so for food for himself and the mom. Talk about room service!

Once the pups have matured a little bit, dad will call his pups away from their mom to play with them. It is through this play that the father will pass on his knowledge of survival skills to the next generation. He will teach them how to hunt, scavenge and escape predators in a variety of ways, including hiding food for the pups to find and roughhousing.

After all, if you’re going to teach something, you might as well do it in a fun way, right?

The Mr. Mom’s

Seahorses

It is a simple story that we have all heard before:

Boy meets girl. Boy courts girl. Boy and girl fall in love, get married. Boy gets pregnant.

Yes, you heard correctly! Male seahorses accept the eggs, fertilize them and carry the eggs to term. In fact, the seahorse is the only animal where the male becomes truly pregnant.

So, how does this even work?

The female inserts her oviduct (where anywhere from 50-1500 eggs will travel through) into the male’s specially adapted brood pouch (located on his abdomen). When the eggs are in place, the male fertilizes them and clings to a nearby plant and proceeds to wait a few weeks for the eggs to mature.

Every morning during the gestation period, the female seahorse will visit the male and engage in a greeting ritual that lasts for several minutes, before leaving once again. After a few weeks, the male will give birth to live young at night, and then return to his mate the following morning for the next batch of eggs.

Emperor penguins

When it comes to being a great dad, emperor penguins deserve to win an award year after year for the sheer amount of work and devotion they show to their offspring.

Female emperor penguins lay one egg at a time because it would require too much energy to produce more than one. At this point, most bird species would set up a nest and sit on it for hours at a time, often with the male and female taking turns to incubate the developing embryo.

But, that’s not their style. No, emperor penguins are too intense for something as simple as a nest – they lay their egg on the cold Antarctic permafrost!

After laying her egg, the female is exhausted and needs to feed. So, she carefully transfers her precious cargo to the feet of her mate. This must be done with the finest precision, because if the egg slips onto the freezing ice or snow beneath them for too long, the unborn chick is unlikely to survive. Then, female then waddles off to the ocean to fill her belly, leaving daddy with all the parental responsibility.

The diligent father incubates his egg in his brooding pouch for the next 65 days, during which he does not eat. When the egg hatches, his job is to keep the near-featherless little chick warm since it cannot yet regulate its own body temperature. Therefore, in order to keep the newborn chick warm, all the fathers huddle together and form a giant phalanx of fathers and newborn chicks to try and conserve as much heat as possible.

And in a feat of reorganization, the males will circulate in the mass, allowing each group a turn at the cool outermost edge and warm center.

Eventually, the mother emperor penguin returns from sea, full of food and energy to devote to her newborn chick. She takes over from dad, and after over two months, it is finally dad’s turn to fill his belly for the next shift change.

Not Bad, Dad!

Hopefully you can see from this article that there are some pretty fascinating fathers out there in the animal kingdom, all with their own unique style. While many male animals simply deposit their sperm and leave all the parenting up to the female, some really do go the extra mile.

So to all the dads out there, human or not, thank you for just being you!

Image Credits:

1) Photo of Male Lion posted to Wikimedia Commons by Tony Brierton (Creative Commons license). 2) Photo of Grizzly Bear posted to Wikimedia Commons by Shellie (Creative Commons license). 3) Photo of Pygmy marmoset posted to Wikimedia Commons by Malene Thyssen (Creative Commons license). 4) Photo of Rhea posted to Wikimedia Commons by LadyofHats (Creative Commons license). 5) Photo ofOstrich posted to Wikimedia Commons by Nicor (Creative Commons license). 6) Photo of Red Fox posted to Wikimedia Commons by Alan D. Wilson (Creative Commons license). 7) Photo of Seahorse posted to Wikimedia Commons by Joanne Merriam (Creative Commons license).

About the Authors:

David Manly is a Canadian freelance science journalist who holds degrees in Biology and Zoology, as well as a Masters of Journalism. Currently, he writes about the ecology, physiology and behavior of all different types of animals (from fungi to mammals and everything in between), as well as how to improve science communication and interaction between professionals and the general public. You can find David’s work on his Lab Spaces blog, as well on his own blog The Definitive Host and on Twitter ( @davidmanly).

Lauren Reid has a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, and is currently undertaking an MSc in evolution and animal behavior at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her interests include the evolution of sexual strategies, human-animal interaction, science in the media and dressing up for fun. She wants to be a science communicator when she grows up so she can make a living out of telling people how awesome science is. She can be found on Twitter ( @psychogeek07) and through her blog, Phylogenetic Tree Hugger.

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those ofScientific American.

Sunspot Drop Won’t Cause Global Cooling

Sunspot Drop Won’t Cause Global Cooling: "


News that solar activity might fizzle for a few decades has prompted talk of a new “Little Ice Age,” even a quick fix for global warming. But that’s just not going to happen.

The cooling impact of the last prolonged solar lull “was probably only a couple tenths of a degree Celsius,” said climatologist Michael Mann of Penn State University. “It’s a tiny blip on the radar screen if you’re looking at the driving factors behind climate change.”

The possibility of imminent solar dormancy was raised by reports from the ongoing American Astronomical Society meeting of fading sunspots and dips in the sun’s magnetic patterns. Those are considered portents of solar inactivity, suggesting that the next solar minimum — a natural downturn in activity — would be especially pronounced, perhaps lasting for decades.

The frozen Thames, circa 1677. Artist unknown, Wikimedia Commons.

When that last happened, between the mid-17th and early 18th centuries, northern Europe experienced a period of unusually cold weather. Known as the Maunder Minimum, or more conversationally as the Little Ice Age, it’s a period historicized by accounts of ice skating on the Thames and seasonal inns built on Baltic Sea ice.

Press accounts of the new solar reports played up the Maunder Minimum angle, hinting that it might happen again. Some even implied that global warming might be counteracted.

In fact, the meaning of the latest sunspot reports is still being debated, as Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth has chronicled. But even if they really do portend a decades-long solar lull, studies already point to a minimal effect on climate.

Most Little Ice Age cooling appears to have been the result of coincidentally high volcanic activity that cloaked Earth in sunlight-blocking soot. As for the sun, a study published in 2001 in Science found that reduced solar activity produced a cooling effect of about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In other estimates, the cooling is even more insignificant.

‘Global mean temperatures in the year 2100 would most likely be diminished by about 0.1°C.’

More recently, in a 2010 Geophysical Research Letters study, Georg Fuelner and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research asked the question directly: What would happen if Earth experienced another 70-year-long solar minimum?

The answer can be seen in the image at the top of this post, which estimates the temperature difference between a solar minimum future under “middle-of-the-road” climate scenarios and the Maunder Minimum. In a nutshell: It’s going to be much, much hotter in the future, solar minimum or not.

“Global mean temperatures in the year 2100 would most likely be diminished by about 0.1°C,” wrote Rahmstorf and Fuelner. And even if their models and assumptions were so uncertain as to be off by a factor of three, that still puts the cooling at just 0.3 degrees Celsius, or about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Compared to the end-of-century global average temperature increase predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — about 5 degrees Fahrenheit under mid-range scenarios, and 7 degrees Fahrenheit under more realistic scenarios — solar cooling would be negligible.

“A new Maunder‐type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” concluded Rahmstorf and Fuelner.

“The example I like to use is that greenhouse warming right now is the equivalent of 2 watts of power illuminating every square meter of the Earth’s surface. It’s like a Christmas tree light over every square meter. By mid-century, it will be closer to 4 watts,” said Mann, who was a co-author on that 2001 Science paper. “The maximum impact factor of the sun is 0.2 watts per meter squared.”

At most, a prolonged solar minimum would temporarily offset rising global temperatures for a few years, perhaps a couple decades, said NASA climatologist David Rind, who has also studied Maunder Minimum dynamics. But “when the sunspots return, the additional energy will cause additional warming,” he said.

“To point to this as something that could in any way ameliorate greenhouse gas warming is folly,” said Mann.

Image: Average global temperature differences, 2071-2100 and 1681-1710, assuming another period of Maunder Minimum-like solar inactivity. (Feulner & Rahmstorf, Geophysical Research Letters)

See Also:

• Climate Change Wilts Farming Yields
• Betting on Climate Change: Corporations Stand to Make or Lose …
• Climate Change Could Choke Oceans for 100000 Years
• Climate Change Caused Radical North Sea Shift
• East Coast Fish Die-Offs Linked to Extreme Cold Snap
• Secrets of Stradivarius Explained

"

Windows 8: The Beginning of the End of Windows (Michael Mace/Mobile Opportunity)

Michael Mace / Mobile Opportunity:

I have a longstanding rule for evaluating new tech products: Don't judge anything by the demo. I've seen far too many product previews that hid fundamental flaws in usability. Until you can touch and play with the product on your own, seeing the little details of fit and performance that make it delightful or frustrating, you won't really know if it's worth your time.

So it's far too early to make any judgments on Windows 8, which Microsoft just previewed (link). There are an incredible number of ways it could go wrong.

But. I've got to say, this is the first time in years that I've been deeply intrigued by something Microsoft announced. Not just because it looks cool (it does), but because I think it shows clever business strategy on Microsoft's part. And I can't even remember the last time I used the phrase "clever business strategy" and Microsoft in the same sentence.

The announcement also has immense implications for the rest of the industry. Whether or not Windows 8 is a financial success for Microsoft, we've now crossed a critical threshold. The old Windows of mice and icons is officially obsolete. That resets the playing field for everybody in computing.


The slow death of Windows

When Netscape first made the web important in personal computing, Microsoft responded by rapidly evolving Internet Explorer. That response was broadly viewed as successful, but in retrospect maybe it was too successful for Microsoft's good. It let the company go back to harvesting money from its Windows + Office monopoly, feeling pretty secure from potential challengers.

Meanwhile, the focus of application innovation slipped away from Windows, toward web apps. New software was developed first on the Internet, rather than on Windows. Over time, Windows became more and more a legacy thing we kept because we needed backward compatibility, rather than a part of the next generation of computing.

Windows was our past, the web was our future.

This process was made very starkly clear by the iPad. Although the iPad is not a comprehensive PC replacement, and Apple has been very careful to say that, it is a very good PC replacement for certain tasks. And it has probably started to eat a hole in sales of notebook PCs, a very ominous change that should scare the daylights out of the people in Redmond.

To me, Windows 8 is the first sensible response by Microsoft to the strategic challenge it faces from the web. It apparently introduces not just a new user interface, but also a new programming model that embraces web technologies and integrates them with Windows resources and APIs.

I need to see a lot more on that programming model: How will Windows web apps really work, which APIs are available, how will these apps be sold and discovered, and on and on. Ars Technica had a great question: What's the visual paradigm for apps that want to look modern but aren't appropriate for touch? (link):

"There are plenty of applications that are too complex and fiddly to ever be at home with a touch-first interface—consider a software development environment, or a fully-featured office suite. Leaving these stuck in a Windows 7 ghetto doesn't seem like a good long-term option."

But at least Microsoft is finally trying. The alternative was to cling to the past and be a stationary target, gradually eaten away by the iPad and Android and Chrome and smartphones and whatever else the web world cooked up.


The risk

There's a downside in all of this for Microsoft. By embracing the next generation of computing, Microsoft is obsoleting its current products.

You can see this effect just by watching the Windows 8 preview video (link). The new interface and its applications look fluid and roomy and relaxing to use. The interface is smooth and playful. And then they switch into Windows compatibility mode and there's an explosion of crapola on the screen. It almost made me gag.

John Gruber says this is a fundamental flaw in Microsoft's approach (link), as does Jason Snell at Macworld (link). I understand what they're saying -- when you're working on a new paradigm, you don't want to be distracted by any baggage from the old one. But for Microsoft, this is about more than just responding to the iPad. It's the company's next computing paradigm, a change as fundamental as the transition from DOS to Windows. The thing that made the Windows transition work was that Microsoft protected the customers' investment in old applications and data. You could keep using your old DOS applications while you gradually got used to Windows.

So users will have an interesting choice. Apple, with iOS, is making a clean break with the past. So are Chrome and Web OS. Microsoft is trying to cherry-pick the best of iOS and WebOS and Chrome, and wrap that into a product that's also backward-compatible. Let's see, cleaner design versus backward compatible...where have I seen that before? Oh yeah, Mac vs. Windows, 1990. I was at Apple at the time, and backward compatibility was the magic key that kept the PC installed base loyal. I'm sure Microsoft knows that, and they're looking to run the same play again. Since they are not likely to create something even slicker than Apple, I think they're absolutely right to maintain compatibility in their new product. It's really their only choice.

Old Windows apps running inside Windows 8 do look awful. But so did DOS inside Windows 3.0, and that didn't stop people from buying it.

Microsoft will pay a serious price for the Windows 8 announcement. Most PC users haven't yet upgraded to Windows 7, and some Microsoft execs have been bragging in public about the revenue to come from upgrading all of those people. Forget about it. I think you'd be an idiot to buy Windows 7 for an existing PC when you know Windows 8 is coming. It would be like buying a horse-drawn carriage after Ford announced the Model T.

So there is a risk (actually, a likelihood) that Microsoft will stall its own revenue this year. I'm surprised that it is previewing Windows 8 so early, when it won't even have more details until its developer conference in September. And who knows when the new OS will actually ship; ArsTechnica guesses it'll be the second half of 2012, which usually means December. That means we're in for up to 18 months of vaporware. If I had to pick a fundamental flaw in Microsoft's approach, I'd point to that 18 month delay. It's way too long. It should have been nine months maximum.

Hey Microsoft, does no one there remember Osborne Computer (link)? You can destroy a tech company by pre-announcing your next generation product before it ships. Luckily for Microsoft, most PC companies don't have an immediate alternative to Windows, so it won't collapse the way Osborne did. I assume the folks at Microsoft were spooked by the competition and decided they needed to preannounce Windows 8 now to prevent Google Chrome from gaining momentum, or iOS from taking over, or some other alternative like Web OS emerging, now that HP is talking about licensing it (link). But the long delay raises the risks to WIndows. Microsoft has now bet its future on Windows 8. If it's late, or if it's not a great experience, that could turn into a very serious financial issue for the company, and it could invite customers to switch to something else. A few years from now we could look back at this as Microsoft's death rattle.

Or as its new beginning.


What it means to the rest of us

The history of platform transitions is that they are huge opportunities for developers. They reset the playing field for apps and devices. Look at the history: The leaders in DOS applications (Lotus, Word Perfect, etc) were second rate in GUI software. The leaders in GUI apps (Adobe, Microsoft, etc) were not dominant in the web. It's actually very rare for a software company that was successful in the old paradigm to transfer that success to the new one. Similar turnover has happened in hardware transitions (for example, Compaq rode the Intel 386 chip to prominence over IBM in PCs). And yes, there is a hardware transition as part of Windows 8, since it will now support ARM chips, and you'll want a touchscreen to really take advantage of it.

So if you're running an existing PC hardware or software company, ask yourself how a new competitor could use the platform transition to challenge your current products. Here's a sobering thought to keep you awake tonight: the odds are that the challengers will win. The company most at risk from this change is the largest vendor of Windows apps, Microsoft itself. Microsoft Office must be completely rethought for the new paradigm. You have about 18 months, guys. Good luck.

By the way, web companies are also at risk. Your web apps are designed for a browser-centric, mouse-driven user experience. What happens to your app when the browser melts into the OS, and the UI is driven by touch? If you think this change doesn't affect you, I have an old copy of WordStar that you can play with. Google and Facebook, I am talking to you.

If you're running a hardware company, how will you need to change your devices to take advantage of the new OS? Shipping a device that isn't Windows 8 ready will soon be as risky as shipping a PC in 1993 that couldn't connect a mouse. (Unfortunately, because Windows 8 is so far out, I don't know if Microsoft has even fully defined the hardware spec for a Windows 8 PC. The OS cries out for a flat panel screen that docks, so you can use it on your lap or as a monitor. Microsoft has a lot of work to do, and the PC vendors will face a lot of uncertainty.)

If you're starting up a software or hardware company, you should ask yourself what new opportunities will be created for you by Windows 8. What category of app or website will be made obsolete by this new operating environment, and can you seize it? (For starters, who's going to take down Office?)

And if you're making a competing platform, this is your opportunity to strike. Microsoft has given you more than a year's advance warning. The race is on to replace Windows. Can you create a better alternative? How will you protect the legacy apps and data of PC users? If you're looking to license, can you line up enough vendors, and a reference hardware design, to get to critical mass before Microsoft does?

I have no idea how this will all turn out, but finally after 20-plus years of GUI dominance on the desktop, fundamental change is at hand and the dice are rolling again.

This will be fun.

Why This E. Coli Outbreak Has Me Scared

The E. coli outbreak that started in Germany is getting bigger and a lot scarier. Ten countries have reported a total of 1,614 severe cases to the European branch of the World Health Organization as of early June 2. Thousands more have no doubt fallen ill with less severe symptoms. On June 1, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported two cases (both travelers) in the U.S. of infection with the strain, called EHEC 0104:H4, and is asking state health departments to be on the lookout for more.*

It is still the early days in the outbreak but as a science journalist, I have three main questions for which I would really like to find a few answers.

1. Where did this rare EHEC 0104:H4 strain come from? I'm not talking about which country it came from but rather how did it develop? Given how quickly and how widespread the outbreak started, I'm particularly interested to learn if any particular industrial agriculture techniques—like liquid manure spreaders—were involved?**

2. Why are adults (and particularly women) being more severely affected than children or the elderly? Perhaps this is just a fluke—for instance, women probably eat more greens than men. Or is there some underlying biological reason—such as an overly robust inflammatory response to the infection called a cytokine storm, as has happened in other toxic E. coli outbreaks?

3. What is the likelihood that this new EHEC 0104:H4 might pick up even more genes that confer resistance to antibiotics? Part of the reason this strain is deadly is because it has picked up the genes to make two different deadly toxins (one that causes bloody diarrhea and the other that attacks the kidneys). And the Robert Koch Institute in Germany has determined that EHEC 00104:H4 strain is also resistant to 14 different antibiotics. Fortunately, it is still susceptible to two of the carbapenem antibiotics (imipenem and meropenem).

I shudder to think what would happen if EHEC 0104:H4 picked up the genes that confer resistance to carbapenems, which are drugs of last resort for gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli. As Maryn McKenna reported in "The Enemy Within" (preview) back in April, carbapenem resistance genes are now proliferating around the world and have already spread to a few strains of E. coli. Given how frequently severe E. coli outbreaks have occurred in recent years, it seems like only a matter of time before we have an E. coli outbreak that is both extremely deadly and completely immune to antibiotics.

Image: Courtesy of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

*Correction (6/2/11): The name of the current strain was corrected throughout the post.

**Clarification (6/2/11): A sentence was deleted after publication because it attributed the origin of a 2006 E. coli outbreak in California to chicken manure. According to the FDA, however, that outbreak's origin remains inconclusive.