TWO fun weekends are coming up that will see lots of people out and about: Father’s Day followed by Lancaster Pride.

These events are wonderful celebrations of human love, whereas many different styles of love and parenting can be found throughout the animal kingdom.

Zoo visitors love asking about animal parenting styles and stories.

At one end are external breeders like our clownfish, where eggs and sperm are released into a nest or scrape; leaving the fry to hatch by themselves (just like in the movie, Finding Nemo).

At the other end are mammals that raise their young until adulthood.

Some animals parent in pair-bonded couples, like our snow leopards.

Others spread the chores between families or packs.

Our meerkats delegate the babysitting duties to older siblings and our miniature monkeys often have dad or uncle giving Junior a piggyback.

Perhaps the ultimate examples of community care are creatures which live in (the science bit) eusocial hierarchy societies, like our leafcutter ants.

Only one female, the queen, produces eggs, which everyone else in the whole colony helps protect until they are safely hatched.

Rightfully praised for their parenting dedication, seahorse dads are among very rare examples of male pregnancy.

Mum deposits her eggs into the male seahorse’s pouch, then he fertilises and incubates them for up to 25 days until they are born as tiny seahorses.

But the natural world contains much more diversity than male-female partnering.

Hundreds of species have been documented in same sex bonded pairs.

Like all snails, the Oasis’s giant African snails are hermaphrodites.

Having both female and male reproductive cells, some species produce fertilised eggs completely solo.

Others can pair up with literally anyone, as long as both shells spiral the same way.

Penguins are one of the more well known examples of same sex couples that raise young together.

Another less known animal that pairs with the same sex are domestic sheep.

Around 10% of rams completely ignore the ewes in order to pair with another ram.

Next time you are at the Oasis, keep an eye out for all the ways animals exhibit their love.