It’s Getting Ugly — These Creatures Do the Most to Their Mothers
Generation after generation, without changing
Against everyone’s wishes, my chicks used to stay in the bedroom with me.
My family members would complain about the stink coming from my room, but I hardly noticed it. I was enjoying the whole experience.
The plan was to start a poultry business.
But I ended up falling for the chicks. Their daily behavior and antics grew on me.
They would huddle around each other at night to generate warmth. During the day, how they’d stretch underneath the sun was a marvelous sight to see. At least for me.
As for the small, weak ones, they’d squeeze themselves into almost any situation. At night for warmth, and during the day, for food.
I kept them warm by heating water, pouring it inside a plastic bottle, and placing it in my makeshift chicken coop.
I had to make sure the bottle had a wide base, so chicks couldn’t topple it.
But sh*t happens.
One time, they tipped it.
The water spread all over their feathers, floor, and walls. Luckily, it was daytime.
At the moment, I was more concerned with drying the coup and my room.
I then took them outside to bask in the sun. They looooved it!
Something as small as that later turned into a major situation overnight.
One of the smaller chicks took a while to dry up. Every time I lay the feeding can, the rest would rush, blindly towards it. Amid the scuffle, they’d step over the young one.
By the hour it got weaker. What happened next was disturbing.
Some of the larger chicks started pocking at its legs. They pocked wounds and pecked some more. It made it harder to protect it.
Separating it from the rest would subject it to cold. Leaving it with the fold would increase the pecking of the fresh, sore wounds.
What to do!
I made a small space for it, had its own warm water bottle, and felt confident of what I had done.
It was stronger the following day, but still weak. I returned it to the other chicks.
That afternoon, I found it dead. The rest were feasting on its open wounds.
The South has always been Dirty but now it’s gettin’ ugly
It was an ugly scene.
I removed it immediately. I couldn’t believe the family had turned on one of its members.
But that was a mild form of what happens in the wild.
In the USA, the South is called the Dirty South with good reason. It is largely related to the hip-hop culture.
In Southwestern Africa, there lies the home to one rare group of spiders. Social spiders.
I have never seen spiders huddled in a nest. Usually, they are solitary, and scare the hell out some people I know. Eight-legged freaks.
Most spider species are solitary. Less than 3% of them are social. Freakishly social.
How, you ask? The children feast on their mothers. Ravenously.
I said My momma — It seems as if I love her don’t it?
The African social spider has one of the rarest traits.
For starters, they comprise mostly females. Males are a fringe sample. Even then, while the female can last up to a year, the males often die after a month.
Mothers run these nests.
The second feature has to do with the care the hatchlings get from their mothers. In these nests, everybody is a mother.
Let’s say one of the females laid eggs. Every female must care for these hatchlings.
They can do it in two ways.
The virgin females can protect the rest from predators as they are the stronger ones at that time. They can alternatively regurgitate material for the hatchlings to consume.
You get a mother, and you get a mother and everybody gets a mother.
They produce nutritive fluid from their guts. The same goes for the mother.
After some time, the production overwhelms the mother. In a final bout of selfless gesture, the mother gets consumed by the very juices it regurgitates.
It turns into a feast.
The hatchlings begin to feed on the mother.
The idea is, the nutritive value the mother offers is like the 6 months of breastfeeding. It gives the young ones the much-needed boost to survive better until adulthood.
You thought kicking your mother when you’re in the womb was bad, these hatchlings don’t care. Hunger is a great motivator.
They kick their way into their mother’s flesh.
This is complicated — at least to y’all it is
To me, it was.
Seeing the chick family feast on one of their own struck a nerve. The African social spiders take it a notch higher.
Yes, they will make a feast of the mother. The other virgin females will watch. They will welcome the strong hatchlings and the numbers will increase.
Comparison groups show the hatchlings that feed on their mother are stronger and bigger than those that do not. And the other members of the nest need all the muscle they can get.
Imagine the last born in your family walks up to your mother and throws embers at her, prepping her for a meal. Your aunts, on the other hand, sit back and watch.
It might seem like a stretch, but it’s a good analogy to use. It makes it hard for you to forget what the spiders do.
But humans have different behaviours. Such a child would face the full force of the law.
The law prohibits such antics for the furtherance of peace. Stronger bonds can then be established from there. It is a basis for having stronger groups and societies.
For these groups of spiders, a stronger nest is only possible if the hatchlings are strong enough. It is a basis for having stronger members to defend the nest. Why?
They can be preyed on.
These arachnids are around 2–4 mm long. They are the right size for other insects and birds. Strength is of the essence
What you need to do, is just admit you love me
Before the mother is mauled, the other virgin spiders also help in the nursing and care of the hatchlings. It is the process of alloparenting.
What this means is the members who are not the mothers still participate in the raring of the young.
After the mother is mauled, the process continues. They still care for these young matricidal predators.
It happens despite these virgin females having the potential to reproduce. They are not sterile, as seen in other social creatures.
Basically, what these hatchlings are saying is:
What you need to do, is just admit you love me.
And several theories have been used to explain such odd behaviours. The leading theory is kin selection. But, that is a story for another day.
You however have to admit.
In the south, in Africa, things can get ugly.
Real fast.
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