Mothers are always there for their children whether they are humans, animals or insects.  These wild beasts also care for their for their younger ones just like humans.  They deserve to be acknowledged and loved.  Jill Harness from Neatorama has complied a list of eight lovable mothers from the animal kingdom.

1) Elephant

First on this list is the elephant.  A female elephant carries the world’s largest baby (almost 250 pounds) for 22 months.  After delivering it she looks after the baby and has help from other female elephants.  Baby elephants are born blind and are dependent on their mom for quite a while. The baby elephant is looked after by a herd of nannies called “allmothers”.  So when the caretakers baby sit the baby, the mother elephant goes about and eats so she can produce enough milk for her cuddly child.

2) Alligators

I know it was a shock to me too.  It’s hard to think of cold-blooded, wild, meat-eating female animals as caring mothers.  But the alligator is surprisingly one of them.  The mother alligator makes nests using rotting organic-matter that keeps the eggs warm and also determines the sex of the baby alligators.  Warmer nests produce more male babies than cooler nests.

After creating the nest, the mother alligator guards it day and night to protect her eggs from becoming other alligators’ breakfast, lunch or dinner.  She looks after her babies for a year after they have hatched.

The rest of the list includes:

Orangutans, octopuses and greater hornbills.  Find out the other animals who’ve made it to this list.

Read it at Neatorama.