As a parent, it’s not always easy to be the best version of yourself. We’ve all been there; scrolling on the phone instead of joining in with the four-year-old’s roleplay, serving the kids plain pasta ford sinner several days in a row, and who hasn’t let them have a bit too much screen time in exchange for a sneaky lie-in?

It might be a relief to know that there are worse parents out there. For example, you probably haven’t tricked anyone else into thinking that your child is theirs so that you can skip the whole child-rearing thing. You haven’t rolled over and accidentally squished your distraught youngsters, or let them fight their way out of a rotting corpse. Your kids didn’t come out of an egg, to discover that you had already abandoned them for the rest of their lives. You haven’t killed their half-siblings, or simply left them because the job of looking after them became too exhausting. You haven’t let a youngster starve to death. And not least: you’ll be surprised how many species actually eat their own children.

Animals who are worse parents than you, gives an insight into the strange and often disturbing ways that some animal species relate to their offspring. Ultimately their strategies work, just like ours, but it must be said that human children have a lot to thank us for.