Doesn’t it make more sense to keep them in the womb until they have functioning senses?
In: 3
It’s all trade-offs. Evolution finds a more or less optimum solution for each species.
Sure, it would be great (for your genes) if your offspring were born fully grown and independent. But this would require a very long gestation period and would be a lot of weight and volume for the mother to carry around and give birth to.
The priorities and strategies differ between species. For example for flying birds it would be completely impossible to carry around multiple well developed offspring. For species like horses it’s apparently important that the newborn can more or less immediately follow the herd and keep up. Of course the disadvantage is that the pregnant horse has to carry around all that weight for a whole year and puts her at a higher risk. Compare that to tigers which only have ~100 days gestation period and give birth to two to four offspring. Tigers can also get pregnant again within the same year if the first litter dies.
Latest Answers