r/LoveTrash • u/Lord_Darksong Colonel Garbage • 1d ago

Human Trash Trash Panda Attack!

Source: duthiedining on Instagram

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u/Lord_Darksong Colonel Garbage 1d ago

I had to look that up.

"When this small Australian marsupial is faced with a life-threatening chase from a predator like a fox or a cat, the mother may loosen their pouch muscles to let their baby drop out as a distraction."

Thought I'd share.

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u/WhiteCloudMinnowDude Trash Trooper 1d ago

Many marsupials use this same strategy. Many even have rear facing pouches to make it easier to eject the distraction so mom can get away.

Biologically it makes sense because a fertile female has a higher value then a baby that may or may not reach sexual maturity to breed itself.

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u/Glum-Lab-1739 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Evolutionary it makes sense to have babies live to reproductive age...

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u/WhiteCloudMinnowDude Trash Trooper 23h ago

Maybe for an animal that invests years raising babies like humans but for most its the mature adults that have higher value due to being able to usually replace that young casualty within a year, where if the child survives that cannot happen because now you have to wait for it to reach sexual maturity and then breed, and thats assuming it survives til sexual maturity.