Richard Collins: New research on why male mammals cannot supply milk to their young

Having two milk suppliers, rather than one, would seem to make survival sense. Nature seldom misses a trick. Has she made a mistake with this strange embargo?

A vixen suckling her three fox cubs in early morning light on Sherkin Island, Co Cork. Picture: Robbie Murphy/Provision

A man developed breasts, like the two breasts of a woman, and he nursed his son — Talmud (Shabbat 53b) 

The 19th-century explorer Alexander von Humboldt claimed that a man in a Venezuelan village nurtured his son for three months when his wife was ill. In 2002, a Sri Lankan husband, whose wife had died, is said to have breastfed his children.