Breast-free animals make milk for their young too

Lactation arose not just to feed babies, but to facilitate egg-laying on dry land: Researchers

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Most female flies take a low-rent approach to parenthood, depositing scores of seed-sized eggs in the trash or on pet scat to hatch, leaving the larvae to fend for themselves.

Not so the female tsetse fly. She gestates her young internally, one at a time, and gives birth to them live. When each pampered offspring pulls free of her uterus after nine days, mother and child are pretty much the same size.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 16, 2019, with the headline Breast-free animals make milk for their young too. Subscribe