Animal Fathers Who Do Most of the Parenting

After the female lays a single egg, the male balances it on his feet under a fold of skin through the Antarctic winter. He and other incubating males huddle to conserve heat. The female returns around hatching, and both parents take turns brooding and feeding the chick.

The female transfers eggs to the male’s brood pouch, where the embryos develop. When they are ready, he releases the young into the water. This is a case of a father carrying the developing offspring inside a specialized pouch, after which the young are on their own.

Several females can lay eggs in a nest made by the same male. He incubates the combined clutch and takes care of the chicks after they hatch. A family group can therefore look like one adult shepherding many young birds, all from the nest he tended.

In the giant water bug Abedus herberti, the female attaches eggs to the male’s back. He brings them to the surface to expose them to air and rocks his body underwater to move water over the cluster. The embryos depend on both kinds of care.

The male incubates the eggs and leads the chicks after they hatch. A female can have more than one breeding partner in a season, and the males may raise separate broods inside her larger territory. Keep an eye on which bird stays with the young among the floating plants.

The male takes developing young into his vocal sac. They go through the tadpole stage inside it and emerge as little frogs. The southern Darwin’s frog is a remarkable example of a father using an organ otherwise associated with calling as a place for his offspring to develop.

Once the eggs are laid, the male typically incubates them and attends the downy chicks. A female can lay additional clutches with other males. The chicks start moving and finding food early, so the father’s job is largely to keep them together and help protect them.

A male makes a small tunnel-shaped nest with plant material held together by a secretion. After spawning he stays to guard the eggs and fans them with his fins. The work continues after hatching, when he can return wandering fry to the nest.

The male keeps a ball of fertilized eggs in his mouth until they hatch. Spawning takes place inside his burrow, which the jawfish can dig by moving sand and shell fragments with its mouth. The same part of his body helps make the shelter and later holds the eggs.

The male has a brood area under his tail. That is where the eggs attach and develop after they are transferred from the female. They remain visible on the outside of his body, a different way of carrying a brood from the enclosed pouch of a seahorse.

A male establishes a nest in shallow rocky water, and the female deposits eggs there. He guards the cluster near the rock while it develops. The nest ties the father to a small patch of coast at a stage when the adult fish is doing something quite different from swimming in open water.

The male incubates the large dark eggs and then accompanies the striped chicks. He stays with the young as they get better at moving and feeding on their own. The careful work at the ground nest is followed by a family that can travel together.

The male incubates the eggs in a small nest near water and tends the chicks at first. The female often leaves before they hatch. The father’s work takes place in wet tundra or other northern breeding habitat, away from the open ocean where the species spends much of the year.