Suckle

The suckling is the mammals the name-giving form of nutrition for the offspring. In contrast to other animal classes, in which the young animals do not receive parental food supply ( such as reptiles ) or are fed from the first day of life ( such as birds ), the female mammals have mammary glands with which they have a nutrient fluid that is adapted to the needs of the young animals that milk , produce . Even before the young are born, the first milk, the colostrum , begins to form in the mammary glands. In newborn mammals, the sucking reflex is the first motor skill that can be coordinated immediately after birth. The suction stimulates further milk production. The young animals are fed with breast milk until they are able to independently take in and digest the food corresponding to the species-specific food spectrum. With the lower milk requirement of the young animals, the milk production of the mother animal also decreases.

See also lactation , and for human suckling, see breastfeeding .

A term no longer used today for suckling a young animal is shavings . The word stem is in Middle High German spen or spini for breast. Accordingly, spun-like or spun-like stands for full-breasted. Suckling pig is derived from the root of the word .

A milk step is an innate behavior of many very young mammals, with which they additionally stimulate the release of milk from the milk ducts.

With the exception of mammals, the jumping spider species Toxeus magnus has been observed suckling young animals through a milk-like substance.

Female dog with newborn puppies. The puppy on the left shows how the milk flow is generated with the tongue . To the left of this is an exposed teat .
Play media file

Eurasian squirrel suckling three young animals
A suckling sow and her piglets
Mare with suckling foal
Calf with suckler cow in Frankenfels , Austria

Web links

Commons : suckling - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Zhanqi Chen, Richard T. Corlett, Xiaoguo Jiao, Sheng-Jie Liu, Tristan Charles-Dominique: Prolonged milk provisioning in a jumping spider . In: Science . tape 362 , no. 6418 , November 30, 2018, ISSN 0036-8075 , p. 1052-1055 , doi : 10.1126 / science.aat3692 , PMID 30498127 ( sciencemag.org [accessed December 3, 2018]).

[1] Zhanqi Chen, Richard T. Corlett, Xiaoguo Jiao, Sheng-Jie Liu, Tristan Charles-Dominique: Prolonged milk provisioning in a jumping spider . In: Science . tape 362 , no. 6418 , November 30, 2018, ISSN 0036-8075 , p. 1052-1055 , doi : 10.1126 / science.aat3692 , PMID 30498127 ( sciencemag.org [accessed December 3, 2018]).