I saw this absolutely stunning documentary movie called ‘March of the Penguins‘. It shows the complete lifespan of the Emperor Penguin in the Antartica. The mother and father fight death and cold so that the baby may survive. Everything they do makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view. The movie is a must watch. You will discover more about the nature of evolution that you could even dream of.
But one thing I couldn’t understand is that the fact that the mothers who lose their babies steal babies from other mothers. This doesn’t make sense. There must be some explanation for this, if not this trait could not have survived in the long run.
When stilling is succesfull, it would be interesting to see, if is followed by other benefits. I imagine something like that: mothers with dead babies are not choosed for the next season as partnes (because they proved evolutionary incapable of taking care of the babies) while a mother that succesfuly steal a baby can fake her ability to take care of him and she will be selected by males as parteners based on that faked record. Can we verify somehow a theory like this?