Why do some animals come out of the womb walking/swimming?

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I’ve always wondered this. Like a giraffe can walk within a few hours. Fish and stingrays come out swimming immediately. It seems as though humans don’t have very many instincts other than to eat and cry. So I’m wondering about the technical difference.

In: Biology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

All reproduction is a balance between being precocial or alticial. Altricial animals invest a lot of time taking care of their fewer number of young, allowing them to develop less in the womb and become more complex beings, so humans develop brains. Precocial animals maximise their chances of survival by having as many young as possible and giving them the best chance in life by making them incredibly physiologically functional at birth so they’re adapatable. Precocial animals appear due to predation pressure, where they’re heavily predated so need many young to have a chance at any surviving.

Every species exists on a spectrum between these adapted to it’s risk of predation and complexity of avoidance techniques.

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