The post that was quoted here has been removedIncredibly, incredibly cute. It's so interesting how animals seem to "adopt" other baby animals. In the one I posted with the baboon carrying the little kitten around, I just wonder: Does the baboon think of the kitten as a "teddy bear" or whatever? Or does the baboon really intend on raising the kitten? Is it instinctive for these animals to "adopt" others?
I suspect stray babies are adopted in wild tribes, it's a survival technique that babies are born with and it would be an evolutionary advantage to add new genes to the tribal pool, so there's a mutual evolutionary benefit. It would only be humans who would bother themselves about the species of the stray baby, I suspect. I guess that mothering gene must have existed before the human and ape branches separated from the common ancestor, if both branches have it.
Originally posted by KewpieLet me get this straight. Babies stray into wild tribe communities as an evolutionary, instinctive technique of survival? Um.. I don't think so. As far as the "evolutionary advantage" of different species of animals mating? Um... I don't think so on that one either.
I suspect stray babies are adopted in wild tribes, it's a survival technique that babies are born with and it would be an evolutionary advantage to add new genes to the tribal pool, so there's a mutual evolutionary benefit. It would only be humans who would bother themselves about the species of the stray baby, I suspect. I guess that mothering gene must ha ...[text shortened]... efore the human and ape branches separated from the common ancestor, if both branches have it.
What an odd post.