How do some animals recognise their offspring?
Recognition of offspring by animals
Among the animals where parental care is prevalent it is important for the mother and her young ones to recognise one another so that they do not lose contact. this is done through one of their four senses: smell, sound, sight or touch. Most of the mammals recognise their offspring by smell. It is a common practice among dogs, deer, sheep, hourses and seals. Its interesting to note that among a flock of sheep every mother can recognise her own young ones by smell and ignore others. Among some other animals when a young one is born its mother sniffs it and the smell remains in her memory. Thereafter the mother easily locates her baby by sniffing all the babies around until she finds her own.
Among the birds recognition is more by sound. Each parent bird has her own special ‘mother call’ which the baby immediately recognises on hatching. An Austrian naturalist Dr. Konard Lorenz has made a special study just before some gooslings were about to hatch. He immediately removed the mother goose and sat by the eggs himself. As the babies hatched he gave the ‘mother call’. As a result they followed him everywhere believing him to be their mother as they recognised only the sound. But since he was too big for the young geese they got confused when he stood up. However they were quite happy to follow him when he crawled about on hands and knees. To some animals shapes and size also matter as the sense of touch also plays an important role in the recognition of young ones.