page_title: Alloparenting
section_title: 'Babysitting' in sperm whales
hierarchical_section_title: Alloparenting / In nature / 'Babysitting' in sperm whales
caption_attribution_description: Bagrus meridionalis catfish in Lake Malawi
context_page_description: Alloparenting is a term used to classify any form of parental care provided by an individual towards a non-descendant young. Non-descendant refers to any young who is not the direct genetic offspring of the individual, but does not exclude related young such as siblings or grandchildren. Individuals providing this care are referred to using the neutral term of alloparent.
  Alloparental care encapsulates a diverse range of parenting systems across a range of animal groups and social structures. The alloparent-young relationship can be mutualistic or parasitic, and between or within species. Cooperative breeding, joint brood care, reciprocal allonursing, brood parasitism and cuckoldry represent situations in which alloparenting plays a role.
context_section_description: Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are deep diving cetaceans that exhibit alloparental care in the form of 'babysitting'. When the whales are young, they are not able to dive to and remain at the depths that their mothers frequent in order to graze and feed. Yet being left at the surface alone makes them vulnerable to predators like killer whales and sharks. Sperm whale social groups appear to modulate their diving behaviour in order to provide alloparental care to young within the group and reduce the time they spend alone at the surface, at the same time allowing the mother greater foraging freedom. They do this by changing the synchronicity of their dives to limit the time a young whale spends alone. As the 'babysitters' or alloparents dive and resurface the calves swim between them and therefore care is provided by a number of members within the social group.
caption: Bagrus meridionalis catfish in Lake Malawi
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