Amazing animal babies giant baby born size of a first-grader! Dad gives birth on ice! Stork brings bundle to two-million-year-old! Plus: shell shocker exposed

Science World, Feb 25, 2002 by Mona Chiang

GIANT STUMPY

CONTRARY TO popular belief, not all lizards lay eggs. Some are viviparous, or give birth to live young. And when the shingle-back--also known as the stumpy lizard--delivers, it's a mother load. "Baby stumpies are very large," says biologist Suzy Munns at Adelaide University in Australia. "They're approximately 35 percent of the mother's body weight, which is very high in the animal world." In other words, if a human were to deliver as hefty a baby, "it would mean giving birth to a child the size of an average 6-year-old!"

More painful yet, unlike humans the pregnant stumpy's body doesn't expand to accommodate the developing young--baby just invades mom's body cavity (see X-rays, right). And the reptile (back-boned animal with scaly skin) can carry up to four babies at a time! Courageous?

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The offspring's impact on mom's internal organs exposes her to health risks. During the five to six months of gestation (period of carrying developing young), her lungs and digestive tract become increasingly squashed. In the six to eight weeks before birth, the pregnant stumpy's frequency and volume of breath reduces dramatically. And by the last four weeks, mom's metabolism (rate of convening food into energy) drops significantly; she can hardly move or eat, let alone forage for food. More dangerous for mom: She can't flee predators.

VITAL STATS

SPECIES: SHINGLEBACK "STUMPY" LIZARD (TRACHYDOSAURUS RUGOSUS)

HABITAT: AUSTRALIA

LIFE SPAN: ABOUT 20 YEARS

SIZE: UP TO 41 CENTIMETERS (16 INCHES) LONG

DIET: SNAILS AND OTHER SLOW-MOVING INSECTS, PLANTS, AND FRUITS

FACT: SHINGLEBACKS MATE FOR LIFE. FEMALES GIVE BIRTH ONLY IN SPRING.

DAD DELIVERS

IF MEDALS WERE awarded for childbirth, the father emperor penguin might grab the prize. For nine weeks he stands nearly motionless on Antarctic sea ice, rocking gently to prevent frost from caking his feet. He eats nothing, dropping as much as 50 percent of his body weight--all to incubate (hatch) the egg containing his offspring.

After a 63-day gestation period, a female lays one egg, in late May. Exhausted, she heads off to feed at sea. As the harsh, dark Antarctic winter (March to September) sets in, temperatures plunge to -60 [degrees] C (-76 [degrees] F). The father bird cradles the egg between his legs, covering it with his brood patch (thick roll of skin and feathers). Under the patch, his engorged (filled) blood vessels warm the egg to 36 [degrees] C (96.8 [degrees] F).

More than 130,000 male emperor penguins--in 40 colonies on the icy continent's fringes--brave this endurance test at a time. Talk about a support group: Without food, drawing fuel from a thick layer of blubber (fat), fathers conserve energy through sleep. But the emperor's body, with its thick layers of waterproof feathers (80 feathers per square inch), can only insulate without the aid of the body's energy to withstand temperatures as low as -10 [degrees] C (14 [degrees] F). So as many as 5,000 emperor dads huddle with their backs to the wind to share body heat. Very slowly they shift in a complex serpentine pattern, giving each member equal time at the warmest parts of the inner "circle."

When mom returns in September to feed her now downy-fluffed chick with regurgitated food, dad takes a six-week feeding break. Both parents raise the chick until the sea ice thaws in January--when chicks begin to fledge (live independently).

VITAL STATS

SPECIES: EMPEROR PENGUIN (APTENODYTES FORSTERI)

HABITAT: ANTARCTICA

LIFE SPAN: ABOUT 20 YEARS

SIZE: 100 TO 130 CM (40 TO 51 IN.) TALL

WEIGHT: 30 TO 38 KG (66 TO 84 LB)

DIET: FISH, SQUID, AND KRILL (SMALL, SHRIMPLIKE ORGANISMS)

FACT: FLEDGLING PENGUINS TAKE TO THE SEA TO EAT AND GROW. WITH NO SURVIVAL TRAINING, FEW LIVE TO REACH ADULTHOOD. SURVIVING OFFSPRING RETURN TO THE COLONY TO BREED IN FIVE OR SIX YEARS.

THE SHELL EXPOSED: DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF A CHICKEN A chick's life begins when a rooster's sperm (male sex cell) fertilizes an ovum (female reproductive egg) inside a hen to form a single cell called a zygote. The zygote divides and grows into an embryo (developing young). A protective shell forms over the embryo in the hen's uterus. Chickens are oviparous (hatch outside the body). The hen lays the egg and incubates it, warming the egg to near 37.7 [degrees] C (100 [degrees] F.)

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RARE BUNDLE

SURVIVAL OF newborns becomes even more critical when the race is on to battle extinction. With a staggering 60 percent population decline in the last 10 years, Sumatran rhinoceroses number fewer than 300 today. Believed to have first stomped on Earth 2 million years ago, the mammal (animal that nurses its young) now faces the constant threat of poachers in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia: its horns are prized for medicine. Despite conservation measures like reserves (protected areas in the wild), the rhino's count continues to dwindle.

On September 13, 2001, hope arrived in a 33-kilogram (72-pound) bundle: Andalas (on-DA-las) was delivered at Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo--the first captive birth in 112 years! But raising the captive count to 16 isn't the boy calf's only achievement. His rare birth offers scientists unprecedented data on the growth and reproduction of the species.