Why does it seem like all videos of animals and their kids are just the mom and the kids? Are most animal fathers just there to mate and move on?
In: Biology
Another scenario where the father sticks around is pretty much any herd animal. So you have a single dominant male who is the father of all the children in the group. He is protecting his offspring by protecting the group as a whole, even if he isn’t directly interacting with any of the young. For example lions, gorillas, cattle, elephant seals.
Nature shows just prefer to show images that viewers can relate to. I would even say most animal parents of both sexes are just there to mate and move on. We are the exception.
Look at lizards, generally the mother lays eggs and leaves. Turtles too.
Look at salmon, both parents die after laying eggs.
Coral even just spawn into the water column and let the currents carry the offspring wherever.
If you want examples of the opposite, quite a lot of bird parents take turns hunting and guarding the nests.
Sea horses are protected by their fathers.
There are also other examples of protective fathers here and there, like this frog where the father stays and the mother leaves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3uO2lO9JDk
There are a wide variety of breeding strategies and child rearing methods in nature. But yes, fathers caring for their offspring is generally the exception rather than the rule (Penguins, Seahorses, Clownfish, Humans). This is probably because sperm is cheap to produce while eggs are expensive.
That’s what nature is, the males move on to mate and the females stay with their kids. The male has no real connection, the female does because it birthed the kid.
Males of most species do “just” impregnate the female and move on. You might ask the question “why do we even need males, can’t we all just be females who clone themselves, wouldn’t that be more efficient?”. The reality is that for life to be successful, it needs to constantly compete with and overcome itself. Nature has found an efficient solution: Most complex species have two sexes, one of which bears the burden of reproduction, and one of which endures selection. Peacocks are a great example: The only males that survive having such absurd plumage on average have excellent genes and therefore by only having males with excellent genes reproduce the fitness of the species is improved. There are exceptions, but for most species, having the females being reliable baby machines and the males being experimental prototypes works pretty well. Humans are much more androgynous than most animals because it is normal for human males to invest in the care of their offspring.
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