ABSTRACT
Parental behavior is inherently interesting to all of us, but for specialists in behavioral biology it is perhaps the most compelling and important behavior we can study. In evolution, an individual female’s own survival is the measure of her individual fitness or successful adaptation to her environment; it is only the first step that enables her to take the next important step, that is, to become a parent. Producing children and rearing them until they themselves reproduce is the ultimate measure of successful adaptation among all organisms. It is the measure of their inclusive fitness because in this way parents pass on their genes to generations of descendents. In the performance of parental behavior therefore females (and males in many species) mobilize their physiological and behavioral capacities most fully to ensure the survival and the growth of their offspring.
