杏吧原创

MALE pipefish pregnancy may suit the females, but it鈥檚 a real boon for their offspring.

In human fetuses, antibodies from the mother鈥檚 egg and others that pass across the placenta help build its developing immune system. Sperm are too small to carry antibodies, so males aren鈥檛 thought to contribute.

Not so in pipefish, where the male carries the pregnancy. To see if the immune priming might come from both the mother鈥檚 egg and via the father鈥檚 placenta-like structure, at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany and colleagues exposed lab-grown male and female to dead bacteria. The fish were then left to mate and the resulting offspring were later also exposed.

The young had the strongest immune response if both parents had been exposed to the bacteria, suggesting both provided antibodies (The American Naturalist, ).

Pipefish may not be the only fathers that help build their offspring鈥檚 immune system. Pigeons of both sexes have been shown to 鈥渓actate鈥� antibody-rich 鈥渕ilk鈥� in their crops for their chicks.