Anticipatory parental care: acquiring resources for offspring prior to conception

Many organisms acquire and defend resources outside the breeding season and this is thought to be for immediate survival and reproductive benefits. Fe male red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) acquire traditional food cache sites up to four months prior to the presence of any physiological or beha vioural cues associated with mating or offspring dependency. They subsequen tly relinquish these resources to one of their offspring at independence (t en months later). We experimentally show that acquisition of these cache si tes cannot be explained by conventional arguments such as enhanced survival of the parent or increased reproductive output. Instead this behaviour fun ctions as a form of parental care.