As of: February 29, 2024, 9:18 a.m
By: Sophie Kluß
Comments
Press
Split
Here women dominate the social structures!
What sounds like a political discussion among humans is, for some species in the animal kingdom, normal everyday life.
1 / 13When it comes to African elephants, the female elephant is the boss... © blickwinkel/Imago
2 / 13… because as a matriarch, the mother cow ensures law and order within her herd.
She leads, sets the direction and raises the young ones.
And once the little ones grow up and - unfortunately for them - are male, the female elephant chases away the bulls when they are around eight or nine years old.
She is also the only one who decides about her partners. However, the gray giant is not picky.
When making the selection, she follows the pragmatic motto: The strongest wins.
© imagebroker/Imago
3 / 13“I like to move it, move it!”
– Most people associate lemurs with the famous children’s film “Madagascar,” from which these catchy lines also come.
There the primates with the googly eyes play an important, let's say, singing and dancing role.
However, an important characteristic of the ring-tailed lemur, one of around 100 lemur species, is not mentioned.
© imagebroker/Imago
4 / 13Matriarchy also prevails among the lemurs.
A group consisting of around 13 to 20 animals is always led by a female lemur.
Even if it is still very young or already very weak - women are and will always remain the dominant gender of this primate subspecies.
© imagebroker/Imago
5 / 13Orcas are considered a prime example of matriarchy in the animal kingdom: A pack, also called a school or pod, consists of several families and is always led by the oldest female, the lead cow.
She can live up to 90 years.
Cohesion and bonding of killer whales within a pod is very close.
Researchers observe that orcas have their own hunting techniques or dialects that they pass on to their offspring.
© imagebroker/Imago
6 / 13Mongooses may look cute, but they are not to be trifled with.
This is how it happens that the females, although their form of socialization is not considered matriarchy, still somehow have the say among their peers.
During the mating season, dominant females sometimes lead their entourage into the territory of a rival group, which often ends in death for the males willing to mate.
© imagebroker/Imago
7 / 13Meanwhile, the females take advantage of the opportunity and mate with the strange males.
As a result, the unfaithful mongooses often have significantly more offspring than those who remained loyal to their own group.
Even the lower-ranking males don't miss out on such an amorous opportunity: they secretly mate with strangers of their own species.
© imagebroker/Imago
8 / 13In the case of the honey bee, your article “the” already points to a significant trace.
The males among the buzzing farm animals, the so-called drones, have only one task - to fertilize the queen, who is the only bee in the colony to reproduce.
The female bees take care of everything else.
As workers, they clean, guard the hive and the colony, build honeycombs, fetch nectar - and take care of their male hive colleagues by feeding them.
The purest matriarchy prevails in the honey bee colonies.
And here it is rightly called: the honey bee.
© imagebroker/Imago
My news
“To give away” – Woman puts Persian cat in the middle of the market square
Dog meets a baby for the first time - then tears flow
Space to Cuddle: Why Cats Jump in Cardboard Boxes and Boxes read
Search image: Which animal is hiding here?
Can you find it?read
Woman gives stray a warm place to sleep - later she brings three kittens to the world
Barking for a while: How long you have to put up with your neighbor's dog constantly barking - and possible solutions
9 / 13The social structures of naked mole rats are more similar to those of insects.
The strange rodents are mammals.
However, they are the only ones in their class of animals to live in states.
A queen leads up to 300 animals.
Very similar to honey bees, the mull queen is larger than her subjects and is the only female member of her colony to reproduce.
And that until old age.
Naked mole rat queens are also considered to be particularly fertile.
To do this, they keep a select harem circle of two to four Mull Lovers, who, however, age quickly and die early.
© UPMC/dpa
10 / 1398.7 percent of the DNA of the Bonobo dwarf chimpanzee matches the human genetic material.
Not so the social order.
© imagebroker/Imago
11 / 13Bonobo communities are led by females.
Nevertheless, each monkey member is relatively free in his decisions.
The reason for female dominance lies in their strong ability to cooperate.
Although bonobo males are physically superior to females, especially as a group, there are no associations among them.
© Wirestock/Imago
12 / 13Spotted hyenas form clans that can consist of just a few or up to around 100 animals.
Such a clan consists of several hyena families and it is not without reason that the female hyenas - unusual for mammals - are larger than the male ones.
© agefotostock/Imago
13 / 13Because the women lead their clans as bosses.
Similar to bonobos, female hyenas also cooperate with each other and, for example, support each other in raising their young.
Due to certain anatomical characteristics, women also have the say when it comes to mating: they alone decide which male they want to reproduce with.
Even the lowest-ranking female is still above the highest-ranking male.
The iron matriarchy finds a remarkable expression in the spotted hyenas: male hyenas curtsy to females.
When standing, they place one front leg over the other, which in turn bends slightly.
© Zoonar/Imago
The term matriarchy means that the female members of social or political structures have a leading position - women are therefore in charge here.
Animals, on the other hand, are referred to as females.
You can find out which animal species the females wear in our photo gallery.
Men live better where women are in charge
Ricardo Coler, Argentine doctor and journalist
Here you can find out which animal species males and females love each other for their entire lives.