Research overview: allonursing and cooperative care in felids

Allonursing, the nursing of non-offspring, is best documented in lions but reported in other group-living or colonial felid contexts, including domestic cat colonies. This overview surveys research on the conditions favouring shared nursing, the role of kinship, milk surplus, and the cost of repelling persistent young, and how communal care affects offspring survival. It discusses how allonursing fits theories of cooperative breeding and kin selection and why it is largely confined to the sociable lion and to dense, related groups of domestic cats. It connects reproductive cooperation to social structure. The topic clarifies when and why felid mothers share the costs of rearing.