Humans are species with relatively stable family relationships in nature. When children grow up, it does not mean that they must be separated from their families. This is not the case in the more primitive nature where the weak and the strong eat the strong. Some animals, especially males, will be expelled from the group when they grow up.
But animals seem to have no relatives when they mate. If this male lion that was expelled wanders and grows up, returns to the original lion group and reunites with its mother, then it will know its mother. ?
Wandering male lions
Wandering male lions can recognize their mother
As we all know, there are clear hierarchies and divisions of labor among lions. Female lions not only have to go out to hunt, but also raise offspring. , and the core lion king of the lion group often needs to lie down in the sun and walk around a few times to declare his territorial sovereignty.
It can be seen that the lion king does have privileges in the lion group, and this privilege is not limited to food, but also reflected in mating. The female lions in the lion group are basically its harem candidates, so in order to prevent other males from occupying their own female resources , even 's biological son will be kicked out of the lion group by .
The Lion King and the Lioness
So, the time the male lion can live with his family may only be two years, and after two years it will start its wandering career. Many people may not understand and think this is because of the selfishness of the lion king, but in fact we cannot look at this problem from a human perspective. The replacement of the lion group is actually in line with natural evolution.
This natural evolutionary need is to prevent inbreeding . Because if all the male lion cubs do not leave the pride, then during the breeding season, will only mate with the female who is related to him. In this case, the genes of the lion pride will be affected by inbreeding.
Lion cubs and lionesses
In the wild male lions wandering in twos and threes often form teams to travel together, and the young and strong ones will even challenge the lion .
If by chance, the lion king returns to the original population after going around in circles, then the lion king who succeeds in the challenge will not face his own harem, but his own mother or older sisters. So can they recognize it at this time?
The war between male lions
In our opinion, it seems that all lions look similar and do not have obvious characteristics like humans. Therefore, will a male lion who has been away from home for many years be unable to recognize his mother? ?
In fact, this situation does not exist, because when lions identify their relatives , they do not just use their eyes to identify , as everyone thinks, but more often use to smell . The mother's appearance may change over the years, but the scent does not.
female lion
so it is normal to be able to identify it. As for whether will be inbreeding because of this, we can only say that accidents cannot be ruled out. Because it is difficult for animals to control themselves when they enter the breeding season, inbreeding is also possible.
But for a wandering male lion, the probability of returning to his native family and ascending to the throne after many years is very low. As early as the moment it was expelled from the pride of lions, there was a high probability that it would only move further and further away from home.
Male lions will stray farther and farther away from home after they start wandering.
So, what harm will inbreeding bring? Why do animals that have not developed civilization know how to use and various methods to avoid this problem?
The dangers of inbreeding
As you may all know, in history, in order to ensure the purity of their aristocratic bloodline , European royal families arranged many marriages between close relatives. This seems to have preserved the royal bloodline, but in fact, during this process, not only were more and more children with deformities being born, , but the genes were also becoming more and more abnormal.
Inbreeding deformities
The so-called inbreeding refers to the mating of two individuals with very close blood or genetic relationships, and this kind of breeding will lead to "inbreeding depression." As early as 1876, Darwin proposed the harm that inbreeding may bring, and pointed out that inbreeding will reduce the fitness of individuals.
This is because during the process of inbreeding, its offspring will be more likely to acquire the surviving recessive harmful gene than other offspring, causing various strange diseases in the offspring, and the survival rate will also be greatly reduced .
In this case, if a certain species has maintained inbreeding, then sooner or later they will face the status quo of "cloth bags for sacks, one generation is inferior to the last" of their offspring, and eventually embark on the road to extinction.
The dangers of inbreeding
It is worth mentioning that although Darwin came to this conclusion in 1876, he also had a wrong understanding of genetics before that.
When he was in his 30s, he believed that inbreeding could produce good foals and dogs, so this mechanism should also apply to humans. So after he married his cousin Emma , he used the tragedy of his offspring to prove the dangers of inbreeding.
Darwin had ten children in his life, three of whom died in infancy. Although the remaining five sons and three daughters lived long lives, their bodies were relatively fragile and even suffered from many abnormal diseases.
When people studied his family tree, they also found that his seven children all had varying degrees of mental illness . This illness was very similar to Darwin's symptoms after middle age. What’s even more frightening is that three of these children are sterile.
Darwin
It can be seen that the harm of inbreeding is very great. Although animals cannot sort out these interests one by one like humans, they, with survival and reproduction as their first goals, have naturally learned that this reproductive strategy is not good in the long process of evolution. So will try to avoid .
So, what methods do animals use to avoid inbreeding? Are all animals like lions?
Lions
The way animals avoid inbreeding
In fact, apart from the fact that animals have not developed a civilization as brilliant as humans, their understanding of survival is actually deeper than that of humans today.
After all, we are now at the top of the food chain and can rest easy, but animals still face cruel selection. Therefore, they will avoid inbreeding through various methods and prevent their offspring from becoming weaker and weaker under the influence of this.
Human status in the food chain
The first is through kinship recognition . Animals can rely on 's special means to distinguish relatives from non-relatives, and even distant relatives and immediate relatives. They can identify them.
The stray lions we mentioned above actually identify their family members through kinship recognition.
Scientists observed the mating behavior of 10 Huangshan macaques during the mating and calving periods and found that the frequency of mating by non-related species accounted for 97.9%, which was higher than the frequency of mating by related species. Relatives can inhibit inbreeding through behavioral tendencies, and female monkeys are more active in avoiding mating, which supports the parental investment theory of inbreeding avoidance.
Huangshan macaques
The second is to avoid inbreeding through individual diffusion. Many animals with social attributes will let adult males leave their original families, while mothers and daughters stay, forming a matrilineal society. However, there are also females who leave. In this case, a patriarchal society will be formed. For example, the male chimpanzees in Gombe National Park will stay in the place of their birth, and the females will spread to other populations.
Gombe chimpanzees
The last way is to avoid inbreeding by delaying sexual maturity and reproductive suppression, .For example, after a female lion in a pride stays, she may face her own relatives when she reaches sexual maturity. At this time, it will delay its sexual maturity point and wait for the leader to be replaced by another male lion.
Reproductive suppression
In addition, many animals will avoid inbreeding by mating with outside population partners.
Because scientists used molecular genetic identification technology to identify the parent-child relationship of many species, they found that many animals that do not migrate have "extramarital affairs" . This phenomenon of extramarital mating is not limited to males or females, but occurs in both genders.
Among the passerine birds that have been studied, true monogamy (containing only a single male and female pair) accounts for only 14%, and more than 80% of the remaining 80% have detected "extramarital" in the nests during the breeding period. ” gave birth to children, thus proving the widespread occurrence of “extramarital” mating.
Passerine birds
It can be seen that animals have tried their best to avoid inbreeding. Even though they are not as intelligent as humans, they do have problems related to survival and reproduction. is able to make the right decision with .
After all, if they had not figured out these ways of survival during evolution, they might have disappeared from the world long ago.
