Motherly love: adorable animal moms and their babies
"Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face." Novelist George Eliot wrote these words in Victorian-era England, about a century and a half ago, but they will always ring true. Very few things are as visceral as the bond between a mother and a baby, regardless of species. To celebrate this special bond, click through the gallery and check out these beautiful animal mothers loving on their babies.
Sea lions, Munich
"God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers." - Rudyard Kipling
Mama Yang Yang and cub Fu Hu, Vienna
"I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." - Abraham Lincoln
Mama Sulli plays with her baby, Spain
"I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know." - Mitch Albom
Monkey lovin, Guangzhou
"Motherhood: all love begins and ends there." - Robert Downing
Baby hippo swims with its mother, Maruska, in Czech Republic
"Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved." - Eric Fromm
Mother Keren Peles and her newborn, Israel
"The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Baby elephant and its mother, Nepal
"Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody." - Annie Lennox
