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Kangaroos do the same. To be fair, evolutionarily it makes sense. (They only do it when they have literally no escape, and the choice is either both of them dying or the kid dying, soo…)
I bet in pre-history it happened more often than not in humans, and within recorded history has likely happened more times than anyone would admit.
eeeh our whole evolutionary niche is to be so social that we’ll form bonds with a literal rock, i can’t see the vast vast vast majority of mentally healthy humans managing to do it, more likely they’d try to gently throw the child away from the danger and sacrifice themselves.
Yeah. We evolved to survive as a group. Not as individuals.
Kangaroos while they do sometimes form groups, are far far less social, and kids of dead parents aren’t adopted like what would happen in a human group.
Some of the skeletons that we’ve found from… basically the last ice age, some even further back, show humans (or proto humans) that had had badly fractured bones… but they healed up (not well by modern standards, but nonetheless), and then those bones grew, and the individual died at a much greater age than when the serious fracture occured.
… And these people are buried in graves, with grave goods, not just thrown out or left behind in the wild.
Strong evidence of early human groups actually giving enough of a shit about their members to take care of the wounded, helps to be able to date early societal formation.
https://kimwerkmeister.substack.com/p/the-first-sign-of-civilization-how
Empathy and responsibility to care for others are actually the literal foundation of human society and civilization, contra to Musk and all the fascists and Christian Nationalists recently claiming ‘empathy is a sin’.
Kangaroos form two sorts of groups
- Like most herbivores, they have one male and many females in a mob (kangaroo equivalent to a herd)
- Males outside that mob form loose groups for defence and within that they fight to establish dominance and the top roo may challenge the male lead of a mob to take it over
I don’t think that would be the general case with humans under these kinds of circumstances. For most of history, women had many more children on average than we see in most of the world today. It was expected that many wouldn’t live past three years old in much of known, recorded history. I can only imagine in circumstances even more primitive than what we know of, something like this wouldn’t be as unthinkable as you’re describing.
Plenty of anecdotal stories of infant brothers and sisters not making it through hiding during the holocaust because of muffling their cries.
I don’t care enough to ruin my day by validating a of them though.
It’s true. There are various witnesses of the Shoa who absolutely did testify this happened. I actually spoke to one of them in school - during highschool two survivors of the holocaust did come to my (German) highschool and talked about what they went through, extremely nice people with extremely horrible stories.
One of them explained how they hid in an abandoned building and how the mother of the other family hiding with them choked their 8 week old baby when there was a official patrol nearby and they had to stay quiet. Didn’t help, they got caught shortly after and as far as we were told none of the other family made it.
The worst thing? It’s one of the “less gruesome” stories the whole Holocaust has…
Okay, but I don’t think this was intentional suffocation of the kids. This seems much more as an attempt to get everyone to survive
I read that parents ate some kids during famines. Could be bullshit though, I don’t want to look.
oh you can validate them real easy: it’s anecdotal, thus false until actually proven.
That babies name? Its true. He grew up to be albert einstine
Oh absolutely. We used to not give kids names until they were 3 years or so old. To not get attached.
You do not have to outrun an angry bear to survive a bear attack.
You only have to outrun your least agile camping buddy.
This motherquokka…
You motherquokka, I wanted to comment that!
It’s pragmatic; the mother can make more babies if she gets away. She doesn’t have to gloat so hard about it, though.
She gets an extra d12 damage with improvised weapons what do you expect
If you are alive, you can make more babies. /s
Damn, nature is really cruel.
Meanwhile there are animals that so rarely can find a mate that when they do they mate with the first mate they can find and then just fucking die.
Why did you have to call me out like that? /s
Wait til you hear about this sentience thing
Sentience, or sapience? Every animal is sentient.
Haven’t we moved into the belief that many/most multicellular organisms are sentient?
Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
The studies on plant ‘cognition’ and their ‘nervous system’ are not for naught. They have produced doubt. Some researchers are suddenly unsure about the status of plants and this doubt is necessary to get researchers engaged in and to acquire funding for research into plant sentience. The question of plant sentience is one of those fascinating question where, whichever answer is true we will all be in awe. If plants are sentient, then we need to rethink much of our current understanding in neuroscience. How could such a vascular system, different in so many ways from our own nervous system, give rise to consciousness? If plants are not sentient, then we are witness to a self-maintaining entity capable of complex cognitive behaviour without the presence of consciousness. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-024-09953-1
This topic fascinates me. I’m not trying to be confrontational or argumentative, sorry if it comes off that way.
Yes. All animals are sentient, and other organisms are, too. It’s a low bar to clear. It’s a pet peeve of mine that “sentient” has been co-opted to mean “sapient.”
That is very frustrating, to be sure.
However, the ways we’ve begun to think about sapience are so intriguing, as well. We’re beginning to move away from the anthropocentric view that humans are the only sapient creatures. Corvids, elephants, and dolphins probably already make the cut (among other vertebrates) according to the current definition of sapience.
Ants, too, which makes me wonder about the potential for deepening our understand of group/swarm sapience, as well. True “hive minds”, etc. Fascinating stuff!
So much of our understanding of the natural world comes from comparing creatures to ourselves through surface level observation. The more we can relate to an organism, as we perceive it, the more likely we are to elevate its status or “worthiness”, it seems. Now, in the presence of modern technology, we’re discovering how little we actually knew about how the world around us works.
This all ties strongly into historic religious world-views, and elevation of humans to god-like (or god’s chosen) status. So much to unpack!
I don’t get what the fuss is about, I would do it too. And you can always make more later. /s
you can always make more later
It’s true, I just threw the equivalent population of a small country in the bin. Can’t say I’m not pleased with myself rn. 😌
Why? Let me tell ou something (compassionists hate this simple trick). As a relativist egoist it’s so much easier. Do what you want to do, morality is a spook anyway. Want to bin a baby? Go for it! Want to introduce new DNA sequences in fertile humans? Do what you feel like doing. As long as you can exploit the consequences for your own gain. Life is just so much easier this way. /s
I just want to poop cubes like a wombat. How close to that is science? How about mad science?
This just happened to me today. A chipmunk was startled by me as I opened a door, and bolted… Her tiny week old baby was left sprawling near my feet.
I used a hand warmer and some microfiber cloths to keep it warm, then thankfully the mother came back for it… But like… Wtf, Mom?
The baby can’t survive without its mom. But the mom can make new babies.
@NaturalHabitatShorts on youtube has a bit about this.
Their whole channel is just animated comedy shorts about weird things animals do and the voice acting is great.
This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks for spreading awareness.
That’s my mom at a '70s measles party.
Hey man, fuck them kids. As Mr. Krabs once said, ‘what have children ever done for me?’
^certifies Spongebob philosopher
Reminds me of a science fiction story.
Intelligent reptiles give birth to hundreds of eggs at a time. They eat most of the young live. The Queen of the planet offers the visiting Terrans a big bowlful of wriggling babies at a banquet.
Improvise, adapt, overcome
, yeet.
That’s one John Oliver looking motherquokka
