How do wild animals...?

Question

How do wild animals keep from inbreeding? Like in a pride of Lions, the same male stays for several years and all of his female cubs stay in the pride. How do their babies not get deformed or something?

Answer 1

In social species, there is usually some form of migration to/from groups that minimizes inbreeding. As for lions, the male lion is often usurped by another male, the male cubs leave the group upon maturity, and the females may occasionally sneak away to join another group.

Then there is natural selection to determine which animals will reproduce successfully. As the environment the animals inhabit is constantly changing, so are the traits that are naturally selected, and thus the animals that are reproducing successfully.

It's also important to realize that inbreeding does sometimes occur in wild populations. For example, human encroachment on their habitat is causing many chimpanzee groups to break into smaller segregated groups, which is causing inbreeding.

Answer 2

There is inbreeding. In your example, the strongest toughest male is the only male who breeds successfully. When a new male replaces an old one, he usually kills all the cubs so it is his genes which are passed on to the next generations. The inbreeding does not usually go on for so long that genetic defects occur. Even if they do, those lions born with defects are not likely to survive. The leader of the pride has a tough job because other males want to take his job. That means that the inbreeding only goes on as long as the leader is strong enough to fight off the challengers. In nature it is the survival of the fittest, but the fittest will be different as conditions change: the best fighter or the best hunter or the best at avoiding predators or the best at going long time without food or water or the best at surviving disease.

Answer 3

Wild animals (and plants) have evolved a number of ways of avoiding inbreeding. In mammals it is primarily the migration of sexually maturing males from their mother's territory. In many species both males and females disperse and in some only females disperse, but male dispersal is most common. Many animals can also detect genetic kin by scent and/or have behavioral mechanisms that prevent them from mating with individuals they were raised in close proximity to as juveniles.

Answer 4

It's not so much a problem with a healthy population. When the numbers get too low they will inbreed. Florida panthers are one example with this problem. Their numbers are so low that genetic problems have become common, and cougars from Texas had to be introduced to add to the gene pool.

Answer 5

Well, I saw a lion with five legs in Arkansas.

Answer 6

don't know, could be instinct or the fact that they are pushed out of the pride