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These Devoted Dads Across the Animal Kingdom Will Warm Your Heart This Father’s Day
Key takeaways
- Jess Daninhrisch | Museums Reporting Intern
- “There’s different strategies in the animal world,” McDonald says.
- Naturally, different species have varying levels of parental involvement.
Jess Daninhrisch | Museums Reporting Intern
Add as preferred source. A male red fox (silver morph) with a playful kit on San Juan Island in Washington state, May 17, 2024 Wolfgang Kaehler / Light Rocket via Getty Images Father’s Day is meant to acknowledge all the dads out there. For Smithsonian experts, that includes the furry, feathered, scaly and spiky ones. Karen Mc Donald, STEM program coordinator at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, along with curators from the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, helped put together a list of nine animal fathers that display some intriguing traits and behaviors.
“There’s different strategies in the animal world,” McDonald says. “In some cases, it’s like ‘I’m going to have one young and I’m going to invest a lot, a lot, a lot of energy,’ versus ‘I’m going to have a whole bunch of young, not invest a ton and hope that one or two survive.”