Original air date: 10 October 1990
Selected material
Opossums in Southern America
Opossums are born as small as peas. There is however a limited number of young that a mother can feed at a time, she only has a limited number of teats. First come, first served – the rest die.
Teamwork
The Florida scrub jays are intensely studied for their family co-operation. Food is scarce and making sure the neighbours don’t steal any of it as well as taking care of bringing up the latest clutch of chicks takes teamwork. Instead of leaving the nest when they have grown up older siblings take part in bringing up their younger siblings and fending off intruders. Seems to give them some “reproductive reward”.
A neighbour is trespassing to steal valuable food (top) that cannot be tolerated so the birds have to attack the intruder (centre) -brilliant way of having the birds attack the camera – having something to lure them to it. The bird is attacked and the food source is safe again (bottom).
Similar behaviour is claimed to have been observed among wrens, woodpeckers and moorhens as well as various mammals.