Being A Mother Is Not Easy

Have you ever seen a documentary about Nature? Maybe not complete, but surely you have seen a few minutes. Normally, this type of film reflects how the predator destroys the prey. And the image that best reflects this is the race made by the tiger or the lion to reach their food: the zebra. But, have you ever wondered how difficult it is to be the mother of an animal that is threatened in the jungle? However, sometimes animals surprise us. We do not always have a camera at hand to film those sometimes unrepeatable moments, but, in the case that we bring you in this article, something worthy of being told could be recorded in detail.

Felines and baboons

We speak of the well-known “The night the leopard slept with the baboon . ” In the video that we offer you can see how the female leopard obtains a prey worthy of such a skilled feline: an adult baboon.

Leopards, which are often harassed by other predators stronger than themselves, such as lions or hyenas, have a habit of climbing trees. Normally, to get rid of this threat, but also to eat the prey that it has previously hunted as quickly and comfortably as possible.

In this case, while the leopard was climbing her prey to the tree, she noticed that something was moving. It was a baby baboon . The leopard, who suddenly lost all interest in her food, lay down next to the baby, not quite sure what to do. The leopard not only stayed with the baby for hours, preventing it from falling off the tree and cleaning it, but she even defended it from a hyena that was prowling the area. Being Madrid is very difficult.

What made you act as a mother?

What led this leopard to take care of that baby? Those of you who have pets know that some cats, which also belong to the category of felines, have a certain habit of “playing” with their prey.

But in this case, the leopard did not eat the baby, not even when the cold finally took its life. So we cannot say that he “saved it for later”, nor that he “played” with it. He wanted to take care of her.

The documentary insists that the leopard is young and very curious. But, next to this explanation and may sin of lack of immaturity. But there may be another reason, which invalidates this previous one:

• The mothers of predatory animals, such as a leopard, a lion or a wolf, tend to hunt a young, leaving it injured, but not killing it. Later, she offers it to her young to try to hunt her. While this may seem cruel f orm part of the learning process from predators, and it is necessary .

This explanation would override the previous one (not being mature), since at that point leopards already discriminate between what can be eaten and what cannot. Why then?

The truth is that, unfortunately, we will never know for sure, but perhaps, we can reflect on the fact that the leopard did not devour the baby because of its maternal instinct. A maternal instinct, it must be said, of which she does not have much experience, since this feline was a mother later for the first time. A great event for her, without a doubt.

Maternal instinct

New leopard mothers often lose cubs, and few complete litters ever reach maturity. This is precisely due to their lack of experience as mothers. And it is that being a mother, also in the animal world, is difficult.

See how far this instinct can go, which, as a final climax, we bring you the images of a lioness suckling a baby leopard. When, normally, they are its main devourers. Heartwarming, right?

Images courtesy of Jeff Bock and Noel Reynolds