The Piping Plover is an actress! Charadrius melodius pretends to be wounded in order to protect its eggs from predators.
Oil beetle larvae can trick themselves onto a bee mamma and eat all that she provides for her babies, and the babies too!
Raising babies can be expensive! That’s why Dunnock bird Mammas practice polyandry and have more than one male mate. More men means more dads bringing home the bacon. Or in this case, bugs and seeds.
Hamster Mammas have a lot of babies. Up to 10 at a time! Sometimes that is too many mouths for one Mamma to feed, so she eats a couple up so she can give those remaining siblings some sustenance.
Toad mammas don't carry one big baby in their bellies, but many littles babies on their backs.
Cichlid Fish Mammas store their eggs in their mouths, so that’s where Cichlid fathers have to fertilize them. Naughty! Soon after that, lots of Cichlid babies swim out and those Mammas are free to use those mouths for things like eating again.
Mothers – all mothers – cannot help being maternal. What is this trait, this characteristic common to all mothers?
Isabella Rossellini is convinced that, in the maternal animal world, anything goes. 'Mammas,' a series of short videos, has Rossellini playing the role of nine different animals to show the viewer that some mothers lie, are polygamous, and walk out on their animal children all the time.