Do Quokkas Actually Throw Their Babies At Predators?
This question started as an online joke, and as time went on, people started taking it seriously. The answer to the question isn’t that simple, however. Firstly, it should be noted that no, quokkas don’t throw their babies at predators. That is a joke, but it is somewhat based on reality. Quokkas keep their young in their pouches, and while fleeing from predators, babies are known to fall out and are then left there by their parents.
The thing that is interesting here is that the part where they fall out of the pouch may be done on purpose by the mothers. Research shows that this may be an actual anti-predator characteristic of quokkas. They normally have very strong control over the muscles in their pouches, so their response to the threat of predators may be to release those muscles. The babies are left there to attract the attention of the predator, and the parents can safely escape. Mothers want to save themselves because they have proven that they are fertile, while the young might not be.
If the mother gets eaten, the offspring in her pouch will be too. Sacrificing one to save the others and maintain the opportunity to reproduce again in the future works out from an evolutionary standpoint.
It’s not that they throw them, they “accidentally” fall from the pouch
Relatable.
Cute
How nice of science to demand the motivation of the mother for ditching her kid.
yep, there’s this weird trend to demonise cute animals.
you can’t even fucking mention koalas on reddit without some arsehole telling us they all have chlamydia every 53 seconds.
according to them, all dolphins suck, all ducks are shit, and all cute little marsupials who never harmed a fly are secretly evil incarnate.
what if all humans were judged by the actions of some humans? that’s a frying pan i’d rather not be in…
More where that came from lol!
-Momma Quokka
correction on that last sentence. mother’s want to save themselves because they don’t want to die. they are not making any calculations about their own fertility.
this strategy doesn’t prove to be a major evolutionary disadvantage because the mothers are proven to be fertile so there is no evolutionary pressure to remove this trait but that’s an analysis a human scientist is making. not the quokka
The individual Quokka isn’t making that analysis, but evolutionary selection is
Evolution doesn’t work that way. It’s not picking and choosing traits. It’s not making analysis.
The quokka just survives to pass on that trait so it persists.
Semantics, but I would say evolution is indeed picking and choosing traits, in the sense that an algorithm picks a result. It’s not some conscious being though.
semantics are important when talking about evolutionary science. especially when a large segment of the population dismisses evolution as a “theory” with little understanding of what the term “theory” means in the context of science.
Gravity is also just a “theory”, that’s why I float off into space some days.
yes 👍
Well, this makes that smile diabolical… lol
The last few memes have been bullshit about the kind of day I’ve been having to spend around my mother in law and thank you y’all for helping
English mother quokka, do you speak it!?
Yeet the baby!
MothaQuokka you did what?!
Is this post text written by AI? It seems very, “no, but yes, but maybe”. It’s like it’s written by an LLM trained on clickbait.
