Parenting Lessons from Frogs and Spiders | Lauren O'Connell

Today we’re going to talk about frogs — and spiders — as parents. 

What today’s show is really about is “pair bonding” — that’s the scientific term for the collaborative bonds that form between two parents — as well as the bonds between parents and their offspring.

It turns out that if you look across the animal kingdom, strong family bonds are way more widespread than you might imagine. Frogs have them. Spiders have them. Fish have them.

We wanted to learn more about the neuroscience behind these familial bonds across the animal kingdom — and what this could teach us about our own experience as partners and parents.

Plus, I just wanted to talk about frogs this week!

Stanford biologist Lauren O’Connell and her lab travel around the world, studying poison frogs, wolf spiders, butterfly fish and other animals that — it turns out — are pretty amazing parents.

Learn more
O'Connell's research group, the Laboratory of Organismal Biology

Further reading
Frogs in Space (Stanford News, 2022)
Meet a Great Dad From the Animal World: The Poison Frog (KQED, 2022)
Stanford researchers study motherly poison frogs to understand maternal brain (Stanford News, 2019)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

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