Reason for animals defending young.

[Rafiq]

Why exactly do animals defend their newborns?

For example, female crocodiles defend their eggs very seriously.

Does anyone actually know the reason for this?

[Spawn of Stalin]

Would you defend your child/pregnant wife?

If yes, then why?

[Rafiq]

Would you defend your child/pregnant wife?

If yes, then why?

No offense, but that wasn't very productive.

Would you eat a puppy? A poor little deer? Right on spot, while they are with their parents? Snatch them?

No?

Than why don't you stop being a smartass and realize that morality and social norms isn't the same when comparing humans to those kinds of animals.

Now, next.

[Ocean Seal]

Why exactly do animals defend their newborns?

For example, female crocodiles defend their eggs very seriously.

Does anyone actually know the reason for this?
The reason is reproductive success. It's similar to the reason that we have sex. It is instinct for certain animals to care for their young and to do so very strongly. Its all about your DNA being overrepresented in the next generation and thus it becomes crucial to protect the young so that they may grow and reach a reproductive age.
Now, I don't know the specifics but this is what I would expect it to be. It probably has something to do with hormones (possibly a burst of aggression following laying of the eggs) and perhaps intra-familial solidarity.

[Zealot]

Evolutionists have gone at lengths to explain this, although RedBrother has explained this in short terms but it wouldn't hurt to read a bit if you're that interested

[The Vegan Marxist]

I could be wrong here, but wouldn't animals who defend their "territory", since there's plenty of territorial animals, see their young as a part of their territory? And if so, then we'd need to ask the question of why they defend particular territories as their own? Again, I could be wrong. Just throwing something out there.

[OhYesIdid]

It morality and social norms isn't the same when comparing humans to those kinds of animals.


lolwut.
by the by, that tone isn't the one we normally use here, comrade.

[Spawn of Stalin]

No offense, but that wasn't very productive.
Um, none taken until you called me a fucking smartass, which is about as unproductive as you can get. Eat your words Rafiq. I replied to your damn topic now what the hell else do you want from me? We are all here to learn shithead.

Would you eat a puppy? A poor little deer? Right on spot, while they are with their parents? Snatch them?
I don't think I understand what the question has to do with anything. No, of course I wouldn't, because the parents would defend them, which is the basic premise of the topic, no?

As far as I'm concerned animals defend their young for pretty similar reasons that we do. For reasons already mentioned by RedBrother (family, DNA, emotional reasons) and TVM (seeing young as territory, which could be seen as family). Many species such as penguins show signs of depression after losing eggs which is very similar to the way humans do after miscarriages.

Disagree if you please but try to be mature about it this time around.

[Princess Luna]

Instinct, while i know its tempting to say "love" the fact a lot of carnivourous animals will eat their young, if the young don't leave after a certain age disproves that.

[tbasherizer]

There may be no conscious reason for animals defending their young, but natural selection certainly has some niches in which it's advantageous. I mean, salmon don't defend their young- they die after they sex it up. But those social animals who do stick around for their kids tend to defend them because of selection pressure in favour of the behaviour.

Darwinian natural selection is the best tool for determining te reasons why things happen as they do in nature. To try to anthropomorphize organisms and work out their 'intent' is ridiculous. Natural selection is in fact the only way to determine these reasons.

Maybe I've read too much Dawkins...

[Revy]

Baby crocs/gators get eaten by fish. Sounds ironic, but unlike fully grown adults, the babies are defenseless and very small.

This video shows a baby gator being eaten by a fish. The video also says that 80% of baby gators don't make it to adulthood because they are eaten. Sounds like they're not being protected enough.

fVyDT5Lr1lk

[Revy]

There may be no conscious reason for animals defending their young, but natural selection certainly has some niches in which it's advantageous. I mean, salmon don't defend their young- they die after they sex it up. But those social animals who do stick around for their kids tend to defend them because of selection pressure in favour of the behaviour.

Darwinian natural selection is the best tool for determining te reasons why things happen as they do in nature. To try to anthropomorphize organisms and work out their 'intent' is ridiculous. Natural selection is in fact the only way to determine these reasons.

Maybe I've read too much Dawkins...

Pack/herd animals' lives involve socialization.

Other animals are different. The best example of this is the sea turtle. The mother just lays her eggs, buries them in the sand, and leaves. The baby turtles then go out into the sea, where many of them are eaten, but some survive and develop on their own.

[Queercommie Girl]

Socialisation is something that evolves further with time.

Most lower animals do not defend their young at all. Even among mammals, mostly it is only females (in fact only the actual mother of the young) that have the instinct to defend their young. Among some species of primates (the most intelligent branch of mammals) and humans, allomothering exists, which means females who are not the actual mother of the young and males also play some part in child-rearing. It is interesting to note that the frequency of homosexuality also tends to increase in higher animals generally speaking.

Socialisation will evolve further in the future. A communist society is for instance more socialised than a capitalist society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allomothering

Allomothering, or non-maternal infant care, can be performed by males such as a child’s father, non-reproductive males in polyandrous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry#Animal_polyandry) systems, or older siblings interested in abetting their own genetic material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_material) via their siblings (Theory of Inclusive Fitness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness)).

Vervets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervet_Monkey), cebus monkeys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_monkey), squirrel monkeys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_monkey), and macaques (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaque) are all known for allomothering performed by females not closely related to the pair. These alloparents help by carrying the infant, providing food, and guarding the infant from predators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator). Cebus monkey females have even been known to nurse infants not their own when looking after them (cf. wet nurse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse)).

[scarletghoul]

because the young whose parents didnt defend them got killed, so the only ones left to carry on the species are the ones who defend their young. simple logic

[Queercommie Girl]

because the young whose parents didnt defend them got killed, so the only ones left to carry on the species are the ones who defend their young. simple logic

That's the basic logic, but the details are much more complex than that. These things cannot be analysed in the purely reductionist sense.

For instance, this isn't the only possible reproductive strategy. Most fish simply lay hundreds and thousands of eggs and do not tend to the eggs or the newly hatched young at all. The idea is that if there are a huge number of eggs, some of them are bound to survive simply through statistical chance alone, and therefore no parental care is needed.

Among higher vertebrates, the number of offspring decreases dramatically. (In humans it's only 1 - 2) More complex behaviour need to be learned and therefore taught to the infants and cannot be directly coded in the genes as instinct. This is why higher animals have few offspring, because the parents need to teach everyone of them. It's also why the behaviour of higher animals tend to be more flexible, including with respect to gender roles and sexuality. Primates are the most flexible and opportunistic mammals, and humans are the most flexible and adaptable primates. Human behaviour has a very high degree of plasticity, compared with the purely instinctive behaviours of lower animals like insects.

[ZeroNowhere]

by the by, that tone isn't the one we normally use here, comrade.Just saying, but actually it pretty much is.

[scarletghoul]

That's the basic logic, but the details are much more complex than that.
That is true for just about everything that exists. There's no contradiction between the basic logic and the complex details

[Queercommie Girl]

That is true for just about everything that exists. There's no contradiction between the basic logic and the complex details

Yes, but reductionism is flawed ideologically because with such a mindset, it's possible to argue for things like fixed gender roles and queerphobia from a "darwinist" perspective, as evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists do.

If reproductive strategy is understood in such simplistic reductionist terms, then it would seem that queer sexuality is a flaw in evolutionary terms, rather than an actual part of the reproductive strategy in a complex manner.

[Rafiq]

because the young whose parents didnt defend them got killed, so the only ones left to carry on the species are the ones who defend their young. simple logic

No, it's not.

Why do parents want to carry on the species?

[Queercommie Girl]

No, it's not.

Why do parents want to carry on the species?

3.5 billion years ago there were some complex biochemical macromolecules on Earth.

Through pure chance, some of these macromolecules began to make copies of themselves.

Soon those macromolecules that couldn't make copies of themselves broke down, while the macromolecules that could make copies of themselves persisted.

These macromolecules are called DNA.

That's how life and reproduction began 3.5 billion years ago, at its most basic level.

[Luisrah]

No, it's not.

Why do parents want to carry on the species?

Because those that want to carry on the species will have more success at it. If they want to protect their newborns, then there is a higher chance that the newborns survive.
If more of them survive, their numbers will grow in the species' population and since they have their parents' genes, they will also protect their newborn.


If being blue made crocodiles invulnerable to predators, then when a mutation happened that made a certain crocodile blue, that crocodile would survive longer, thus reproducing more and leaving more offspring (meaning that after a few generations most of crocodiles are blue)

[Queercommie Girl]

Generally there are 2 broad categories of reproductive strategies, known as K-selection and r-selection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_strategy#Reproductive_strategies

There are a wide range of reproductive strategies employed by different species. Some animals, such as the human (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human) and Northern Gannet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Gannet), do not reach sexual maturity for many years after birth and even then produce few offspring. Others reproduce quickly; but, under normal circumstances, most offspring do not survive to adulthood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult). For example, a rabbit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit) (mature after 8 months) can produce 10–30 offspring per year, and a fruit fly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogster) (mature after 10–14 days) can produce up to 900 offspring per year. These two main strategies are known as K-selection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-selection) (few offspring) and r-selection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-selection) (many offspring). Which strategy is favoured by evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution) depends on a variety of circumstances. Animals with few offspring can devote more resources to the nurturing and protection of each individual offspring, thus reducing the need for many offspring. On the other hand, animals with many offspring may devote fewer resources to each individual offspring; for these types of animals it is common for many offspring to die soon after birth, but enough individuals typically survive to maintain the population. Some organisms such as honey bees and fruit flies retain sperm in a process called sperm storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_sperm_storage) thereby increasing the duration of their fertility.

So actually from an objective strategic perspective caring for the young does not always offer an evolutionary advantage. As with everything in the natural world and in human politics, it's always context-dependent, there are no simple abstract dogmas.