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  • Imagine feeding your baby a milkshake for every meal.

  • Well, for hooded seal pups, that's nothing.

  • Their mothers' milk contains 60% fat, the fattiest milk in the world.

  • For comparison, the richest ice cream clocks in at only 16% fat.

  • And after just 3 to 5 days guzzling the stuff, seal pups double their body weight.

  • But seals aren't the only animals with extreme milk.

  • If hooded seals drink the fattiest milk, then tammar wallabies prefer their milk loaded with sugar.

  • It can contain as much as 12% sugar, more than a glass of Coca-Cola, and for good reason.

  • Joeys are born prematurely and finish developing outside the womb.

  • And since sugars are easier to digest than fat, their milk is easier on their developing digestive systems.

  • Meanwhile, the milk also contains an antibiotic more powerful than penicillin,

  • which protects the young joeys from germs since they're born without a fully functioning immune system.

  • Meanwhile, aardvark milk doesn't contain much sugar, but it makes up for it with extreme levels of protein.

  • While cow's milk has a measly 3 to 4% protein, aardvark milk can contain over 13%, making it among the highest-protein milks on earth, giving calves enough nutrition to reach 30% of their adult weight in just three months.

  • But while aardvarks have some pretty potent milk, nine-banded armadillos make some special stuff of their own.

  • By the time the pups are a month old, they're drinking milk that contains 10 times as much calcium as cow's milk.

  • All this calcium helps the pups develop those famous armor shells, which are actually made of bone.

  • Next up, flamingos.

  • That's right, flamingos.

  • Like most birds, they feed their chicks by vomiting directly into their mouths,

  • but that food isn't made of the day's catch.

  • Instead, it consists of a substance called crop milk, because it's stored in the parents' crop.

  • And flamingos are one of only three birds that can produce this stuff.

  • But even among our feathered friends, flamingo crop milk is special because it's pink.

  • That's because the pigments that give flamingos their brilliant coloring leach out of their feathers and into the milk.

  • Now, all this milk might sound like the next health-food craze, but there's a good reason we generally stick to plain old cattle.

  • They're much easier to milk.

Imagine feeding your baby a milkshake for every meal.

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