Earwigs are a good place to start! Here’s an adorable picture by Joel Meunier of an earwig and her nymphs:
NO SHE IS NOT EATING THEM! She is picking them up and moving them to a safer location, just like a mother cat will do with her kittens. She will stand guard over them and bring them food for weeks, which is especially interesting considering they are fully capable of fending for themselves almost as soon as they hatch, actually faring quite well when “orphaned.” As long as their mother is present, however, they’ll keep close to her (or maybe she keeps them close?) until they reach a certain size.
Another insect with strong maternal instincts is the female burying beetle, who will remain underground with her larvae and the small corpse (usually a dead rodent) that her mate helped her to bury. There she chews the rotting meat into a paste that the grubs can more easily digest. She dies of old age around the time that they pupate, still beside them. The grave she created as a nursery becomes her grave as well.
Certain cockroaches such as Phlebonotus pallens carry the young under the wings, which may be fused together and arched for this purpose. The young are equipped with temporary fang-like mandibles, allowing them to pierce their mother’s back and feed on her haemolymph or “blood.” She has more than enough!
Certain tortoise beetles like this Acromis sparsa will use their bodies as a shield to protect their eggs and larvae throughout their development, though the larvae have their own interesting defense; anal hooks adapted to collect their own feces. Those are clumps of poo hanging off their tails, making them unpleasant to many predatory tastes. In this case, the young and mother probably both help to protect one another.
There are other protective mothers scattered around the Insecta, but some of their only devoted fathers are certain giant water bugs; the female glues the eggs to the male’s back and just goes on with her life, leaving him to keep them safe and hydrated!
This might be some of the most impressive camouflage I’ve ever seen. Looks like the caterpillar of Euthalia aconthea gurda, here it is in the open:
Moray Cuddles
See? Moray eels can grow very accustomed to human contact! Some divers have even “befriended” specific morays in the wild, which supposedly come out to greet them and get their heads scratched. Of course, you still have to be careful around something with razor-sharp fangs and a fairly strong bite.
I have never been so blown away by a photograph of an animal so familiar to me. This moray just doesn’t even look real!
This image was taken by Philippe Guillaume, who is very generous to be uploading shots like these under a creative commons/fair use license.
Moray eels look pretty frightening, some species exceed ten feet and even a medium-size moray is strong enough to bite off a human finger…but the same can be said of many pet dogs, and morays are in fact easily tameable. Large aquarium specimens seem to enjoy being scratched, petted and snuggled by divers in their tanks.
Star nosed mole sniffing underwater
Star nosed moles, unlike most other moles, routinely tunnel into bodies of water and continue about their business. A bubble sniffed in and out of its bizarre nose collects particles from the water, allowing it to smell aquatic prey!
