Whether it's with a funny image on social media, a nature documentary, or looking at a heartwarming commercial your eyes will be assaulted with a buffet of adorable little creatures. With spring being well underway, we’ll soon be seeing the emergence of plenty of new and returning animal parents. Following suit, tons of brand new babies will be entering the world. However, not all of the animal babies are created equally. How they are born undoubtedly are extremely important aspects of shaping the life histories and ecology of animals. This is seen both when they are young and growing all the way through their adult years in determining what parental care strategies they’ll employ to increase their success. 

As spring quickly approaches it brings with it beautiful rain storms, warm air breezes, and longer sunny days we will be shedding out thick winter coats and emerging from our dens to properly enjoy this fairer weather. Humans aren’t the only organisms that are taking advantage of the change in seasons. Springtime is a great time of growth in rebirth as plants begin to germinate and sprout out of the ground and animals return to the area to give birth. Thus turning the midwestern forests and prairies from drab, cold doldrums into verdant wonderlands ripe for endless outdoor adventures.  However, not all of this growth is desirable since Illinois is unfortunately home to several 100 species of exotic and invasive plants, animals, and fungi. We, humans, are to blame for this as our desire to spread across the planet and to experience things from around the world has resulted either directly or indirectly in the spread of a wide variety of species from their native homelands to new areas. Just the appearance of an ‘alien’ species in a habitat is not innate, it's when these species begin to spread and become successful; resulting in economic or ecological harm to the native species, crops, and livestock through competition, predation and in rare cases, hybridization.