Good childcare can be so hard to find. Especially when you're birthin' a dozen at a time. As it turns out, Naked Mole Rat queens have a means of chemically "coercing" other females of the colony to feel as though they have a stake in the upbringing of her babies. As reported in
Nature, the queen passes the hormone oestrogen in her feces. When this is ingested by other females, it results in the desired behavior. This has been identified as an effective method of "transferring parental responsibility."
Posted by David with material from Bret
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