In Animals
Some species of animals show behavior where individuals care for the offspring of deceased relatives or group members. One species in which this occurs is the chacma baboon, where infants whose mothers have died are cared for by young adults (both males and females) in their social groups. These adoptive parents sleep with the infant baboons, carry them, groom them, and protect them from harassment from other baboons. This behavior may be an example of kin selection or may simply be practice for the young adults for when they have their own offspring.
Read more about this topic: Adoption Agency
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)