These twelve striking images show animals as they might look before birth: an elephant calf curled in its amniotic sac, a dolphin already shaped for the sea, a shark pup with its yolk supply still attached. They come from National Geographic’s In the Womb documentaries, produced with director and producer Peter Chinn, which combined scans, medical imaging and computer graphics to show how different species develop.
One thing is often misunderstood. These are not photographs taken inside living animals. When the pictures went viral, many websites claimed they were shot with tiny internal cameras. According to an investigation by the Spanish technology site Xataka, the still images are detailed physical models sculpted from clay, wax and silicone by the British effects studio Artem, based on scan data and expert advice. The series itself drew on real scan data, but the pictures below are careful reconstructions rather than snapshots.
That does not make them less useful. Each one illustrates a real stage of development, and together they show how differently mammals, sharks, reptiles and birds solve the same problem: growing a baby that can survive the world outside.
Large land mammals: long pregnancies, big babies
Elephant
Elephants have the longest pregnancy of any land mammal, usually between about 18 and 22 months. That long time in the womb gives the calf’s brain and trunk a head start, so a newborn of around 120 kg can stand within hours and follow the herd. Because pregnancy lasts so long and calves are nursed for years, a female typically gives birth only once every four years or more.
Polar bears
Polar bears mate in spring, but the fertilised embryo does not implant and start growing until autumn, a strategy known as delayed implantation. The mother then gives birth in a snow den in midwinter, usually to twins weighing only about 600 grams each, blind and nearly hairless. She fasts in the den for months while nursing them on rich milk, emerging with cubs of 10 to 15 kg in early spring.
Leopard
A leopard pregnancy lasts roughly three months, and litters usually contain two or three cubs. Like other big cats, leopards are born with their eyes closed and depend completely on their mother, who hides them in dense cover or rock crevices. The rosette pattern that makes adults so hard to spot is already present, though fuzzier, at birth.
Horse
Horses carry a single foal for about 11 months. Foals are born remarkably well developed, with long legs relative to their bodies, because in the wild a young grazing animal has to keep up with the herd almost immediately. Most foals stand within an hour or two of birth and nurse soon after.
Small mammals and marsupials
Chihuahua
Dog pregnancies last about nine weeks, around 63 days, whatever the breed. The Chihuahua featured in one of the In the Womb films devoted to dogs, which compared the development of breeds as different as mastiffs and Chihuahuas with that of their wild relative, the wolf. Small breeds tend to have small litters, and Chihuahua puppies can be tiny enough at birth to fit in a palm.
Bats
Most bat species give birth to just one pup a year, and that pup is unusually large compared with its mother. Carrying such a heavy baby while still needing to fly is a real challenge, which may be one reason bats reproduce so slowly. Mothers in many species gather in maternity roosts where the warmth of the group helps the young grow.
Possum
Marsupials such as possums and opossums have very short pregnancies, sometimes under two weeks, and give birth to young that are little more than embryos. The newborn climbs to a teat, usually inside the mother’s pouch, and finishes most of its development there. The image shows how small and unformed these young are compared with the other mammals in this gallery.
In the water: a dolphin and two sharks
Dolphin
A bottlenose dolphin carries her calf for about a year. As the embryo develops, the hind limb buds that it briefly shares with land mammals disappear, a reminder that whales and dolphins descend from land-dwelling ancestors. Calves are usually born tail first, and the mother or another female helps the newborn reach the surface for its first breath.
Tiger shark
Tiger sharks do not lay eggs. The embryos develop inside the mother, fed mainly by their own yolk, and litters can be large, with dozens of pups born at once. Shark reproduction varies widely; in some related species, such as the sand tiger shark, the strongest embryos eat their siblings in the womb.
Lemon shark
Lemon sharks are a striking example of a shark with a placenta. After the yolk is used up, the yolk sac turns into a placental connection that passes nutrients from mother to pup, much like in mammals. Pregnancy lasts about a year, litters reach up to 18 pups, and females return to shallow mangrove nurseries to give birth, where the young stay for several years.
Inside the egg: a snake and a penguin
Snake
Many snakes lay eggs, but a large number, including boas and many vipers, keep their young inside the body until they are ready to emerge. In both cases the embryo coils tightly around its yolk, with its long spine already formed in the earliest stages. Young snakes are independent from birth and receive no parental care in most species.
Penguin
The emperor penguin, featured in the Extreme Animals episode, develops inside an egg rather than a womb. The male balances the single egg on his feet under a fold of skin for about two months of the Antarctic winter, going without food the entire time. The chick inside grows a dense coat of down before hatching, ready for temperatures far below freezing.
What these images can teach us
Seen together, the pictures make an important point about biology: there is no single way to grow a baby. Elephants and horses invest in long pregnancies and well-developed young, marsupials give birth almost immediately, and sharks range from yolk-fed embryos to true placentas. Each strategy fits the animal’s environment and way of life.
The images also show how science communication works. Reconstructions based on scans can teach a great deal, as long as viewers know what they are looking at. When sharing pictures like these, it is worth saying that they are models, and crediting the people who built them as well as the filmmakers who commissioned them.
Sources: Xataka: these photos of animals in the womb are not real; Wikipedia: In the Womb (National Geographic); Pioneer: Extraordinary Animals in the Womb; Wikipedia: Elephant; Wikipedia: Polar bear; Wikipedia: Lemon shark; image set as shared by Peter Chinn (imgur); models by Artem for Peter Chinn’s documentary.
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