Killer whales are mama’s boys.
A son will trail after his mother, grabbing bits of fish and other food, throughout his life, even as his sisters grow up and have calves of their own. This neediness comes at a significant cost to mom, who forgoes having additional children to look after her boy, according to a new study.
Weiss wanted to know whether these high-maintenance offspring come at a cost—specifically, whether they hurt a mother’s ability to raise more children. He and colleagues sifted through 40 years’ worth of data on three Pacific pods, social groups typically consisting of a couple dozen, maternally related killer whales that travel and hunt fish together. Sure enough, the team found a “huge effect,” Weiss says.
The researchers suggest mom’s favoritism toward her boys evolved because of the particular social structure of these pods. When a daughter reproduces, her calves stay in the same group as her and her mom and therefore compete with the rest for food and attention. By contrast, a son doesn’t bring more mouths into the group—he mates with females in passing pods who then go on to raise offspring in their own social units.
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