A mother who lives only 2-4 years will spend most of her life walking with her full child on her back, taking care of each cub with all her strength until they are adults and leave her.
This kind of animal with a particularly strong maternal love, relying on every mother to risk her life to protect her children, can escape several species extinctions and live on the earth for 70 million years. These selfless heroic mothers are named "opossums".
The only marsupial in North America, the opossum
Opossums, so named because they carry their young on their backs, are a collective name for 67 species of opossums in the family Marsupials, and marsupials are mammals like kangaroos in which females have special nursery bags.
Most of the world's marsupials now live in Australia, but opossums live in the Americas. Originally, there were some other marsupials here, only opossums were left 2 million to 3 million years ago, and most of them now live in South America, with North American opossums living mainly in the United States and southern Canada.
The smaller ones are about the size of a vole, and the larger ones can grow up to the size of a cat. Among them, the North American opossum is the largest species, with a body length of about 38-51 cm and a weight of 4-6 kg when it reaches adulthood!
The appearance of the opossum is often mistaken for a big mouse, with a pointed beak and small ears, and a tail that does not grow hair, but there is also the most obvious difference, that is, the coat color, the common mice are basically brown and black, but the opossum is the same black and white color scheme as the giant panda.
The tail of a possum acts a bit like that of a monkey, it can hook on a branch to keep it balanced when climbing a tree, and some small possums are basically arboreal animals.
However, because of their large size, North American opossums are now a bit like raccoons in North America, sneaking into human settlements and running around, and they are omnivores, so they have also learned to dig through garbage and steal dog food.
Unlike other mice, they carry anti-rabies viruses and the ability to fight toxins. In the past 100 years, some scientists have found that they can also resist the highly venomous rattlesnake toxin, and scientists have even extracted polypeptides from them that resist rattlesnake venom.
The opossum also has a trick, that is, the god of pretending to be dead. When in danger, the opossum lies in place, and even the breathing and heartbeat will slow down, and the most extreme thing is that the gland will secrete a liquid with a putrid smell, which can make many animals that do not eat carrion give up attacking it.
The most motherly giant rat, the opossum
Unlike other breeds of mice, opossums have a great mother for each of their little cubs. The lifespan of a North American opossum is only about 3 years, and the female mouse has been working for her baby all her life since the moment she became pregnant.
Mammals are divided into monopore, marsupial and placenta, monopore is a platypus that lays eggs, placenta accounts for the majority, and the fetus can get the mother's nutrients through the placenta in the womb, so it can develop to complete rebirth.
Platypus and cubs
Marsupials like opossums, the placenta is very primitive, and the nutritional supply depends on the yolk sac on the placenta, and when the yolk is consumed, the fetus must be born, so the gestation period of the opossum is only 12-14 days, which is very short.
The mother opossum can give birth to up to 13 small cubs in a litter, and in just 10 days, the cubs are almost not fully developed, and a small osum is less than 2 cm long, not even a small bean sprout. These miniature cubs are born fragile and can lose their lives if they are not careful.
But this is also the magic of marsupials, when the opossum mother gives birth, she will use her tongue to lick a path between the birth canal and the mouth of the nursery bag, and the newborn pups will follow this road into the warm nursery bag, accurately find the nipple inside, and start to drink milk to grow.
When their bodies grow up and their mother's pouch can no longer fit, they can only crawl out of the bag, but the baby possum is still very weak at this time.
In order to protect their children, the opossum mother will carry all the cubs on her back and take them wherever she goes, and carry her children for up to 2-3 months.
Therefore, in the wild in North America, I am fortunate to see the mother possum crawling all over her body, walking gracefully. It was full of "sweet burdens" on its back. After 3 months, the baby opossum gradually learns to walk on its own, and then gets off its mother's back and begins to live alone.
The lifespan of a North American opossum is about 3 years, while a female opossum occupies 70-125 days of lactation, giving birth to 1-3 litters of cubs a year, which can be said to dedicate most of her life to her children.
A mother who lives with her child on her back
Possums are not the only creatures that carry their children on their backs, anteater mothers also carry their children. Female anteaters have a gestation period of 190 days, and when their cubs are born, they crawl onto their mother's back.
Anteater pups are usually kept in tree trunk holes and raised by fathers and mothers, who feed the young with half-digested insects. Sometimes females also carry their cubs on their backs to avoid danger to their bellies.
In addition to this, flying monkeys will also carry their cubs on their backs. Female flying macaques have a gestation period of about 2 months and usually give birth to only one litter, and rarely have two litters. The pups are about 22-26 cm after birth and are placed in a hole after birth. If the mother is far away, they will carry the cubs out on their backs.
In fact, whether it is a possum, anteater, flying monkey, or other creatures, they carry their children on their backs to avoid predators and protect their offspring. Only by staying with the child can the child be protected from injury, this kind of life of carrying the child is very hard, but they have also been passed down from generation to generation.
(Mother monkey walks with her baby in her arms)
Do all marsupials raise their babies like opossums?
Marsupial creatures are actually very peculiar, who would have thought that the "macho man" kangaroo, who is 1.8 meters tall and full of muscles, was only the size of a peanut when he was born.
All marsupials are the same, because the cubs are not fully developed in the body, they are stunted after birth, so they are placed in a nursery bag for secondary "development". Kangaroo cubs are born the size of thumbs, hairless, and incomplete in their organs.
The kangaroo mother has 4 nipples in the pouch, and the wallaby grows up slowly after feeding in the pouch, and needs to stay in the pouch for half a year before it is fully developed. It is not until the pouch can no longer hold itself that they begin to gradually separate from their mothers.
However, the little kangaroo that follows the mother, even if it is already very large, the first reaction when it encounters danger is to go back to the mother's nursery bag and hide.
Australia's "devilish creature", the Tasmanian devil, is particularly fierce from birth. They can give birth to up to 30 Tasmanian devils in a litter, but the cubs they give birth to are smaller than kangaroos. These little ones need to crawl into their mother's pouch on their own, looking for protection and finding nipples to drink.
However, the kangaroo is a double uterus system, the cubs in the left uterus are born and drink milk, and the cubs in the right uterus are still developing, and they can basically be raised at a staggered time, and the competition for the nursery bag is not fierce.
But the Tasmanian devil is different, there are only 4 nipples in the nursery bag, like the kangaroo, so twenty or thirty small cubs have to compete fiercely in the nursery bag, and only the strongest four will survive. The baby honey badger stays in the nursery bag for about 105 days and does not leave until it grows to 200 grams.
Kangaroos, unlike Tasmanian devils and opossums, do not carry their young on their backs. However, as marsupials, their way of reproduction and raising babies is similar.
Marsupials don't have any pain when they give birth, after all, the cubs they give birth to are only a little bigger, but they need a lot of energy and time to raise them.
Unlike other mammals in nature, the gestation period is longer, and the young are fully developed in the womb and are relatively large, so the birth can be very painful and even life-threatening.
However, mammals such as cows and sheep are very powerful in the first few minutes after their cubs are born. After birth, the cubs are also required to drink milk, follow their mothers to be protected, and learn basic survival skills from their mothers before they can live independently.
Looking at all the creatures in nature, almost most mothers are heartbroken for their children, and perhaps only maternal love is a pure emotion that can transcend species.