Why do some animals bond with the first thing they see and others don’t.

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Why do some animals bond with the first thing they see and others don’t.

In: Biology

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The same reason any adaptation becomes widespread: it helped the young of some species survive long enough to reproduce. Factors including the immediate post-hatching period (do unimprinted ducks meet grisly fates in those first moments that imprinted ones avoid?), predator behavior (is a lone duckling particularly easy to catch compared to a lot of them led by a loud adult?), foraging efficiency (do inprinted ducklings eat better than diffuse ones on account of the the mother’s knowledge of food sources?), and environment (do imprinted ducklings migrate more safely and effectively than unimprinted ones?) no doubt played a role.

There are of course other evolutionary parenting strategies and behavioral tendencies that don’t work that way – human infants, for example, tend to make noises that inspire nearby people to respond, parents included – but this because this one has served certain species for generations, it continues to.