Real Mowgli – The Science of Imprinting

Rudyard Kipling or Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a remarkable writer, whose perspective had given the world a gift of outstanding stories.

One of the significant novels of 1894, The Jungle Book, is still a great favourite among children and adults alike.

The character, Mowgli, is a young boy who was left all by himself in a jungle when he was just a baby as a tiger attacked his parents.

The story says that the animals took care of him and nurtured him in that harsh environment.

They helped him to grow as he is. The wolves reared him while a black panther trained him. 

But, in the late 19th century, there was a real-life incident where an Indian boy by the name of Dina Sanichar was reared by a wild wolf pack.

Surprisingly, at that time, there were reports that some children, a.k.a, feral children, were reared by wild animals.

Now for instance, a bird that can immediately walk after it hatches from its egg might walk away by itself.

Suddenly, it might be attracted to a typical scent and approach it after it hears a peculiar noise.

Then it finds before it a being, who it might choose as its protector.

This “protector” has been imprinted by the bird as its “mother”.

Imprinting Facts

A newborn animal recognizes the specific exclusive appeal of its parent through imprinting.

It is a “learning” process that an animal has to go through at the earliest stages of its life.

It is imprinting that trains the newborn about the necessary behavioural traits and reading animal body language.

Imprinting influences the social-bonding characteristics of the newborn.

Cross-species imprinting

Newborn animals might even form a “mother-offspring” bonding with another animal from a different species.

Social coherence with physical proximity to each other can help cross-species to imprint.

Film developers use this feature on birds to deliver spectacular documentation.

Imprint Function

During the middle of the 1930s, Konrad Lorenz, a German zoologist by profession, used this technique.

According to him, the only way to stamp or imprint the “parent” to an animal was through the first sensory stimulus it encounters after birth.

Parent recognition and bonding can influence the contact and learning of any newborn creature, be it human or animal.

Unfortunately, over time, such cross-species imprinting can create identity problems, if not more.

The revelation of the Real Mowgli

Therefore, there might have been a "real Mowgli" in the past.

A child that sees an animal at first sight might perceive it as its protector or provider.

Hence, it might accidentally end up thinking that the foreign species is its “nurturing mother”.

Dina Sanichar was reared in the wild by animals, that made him unfit for human society.

His mental and behaviour patterns revealed wild behaviour that did not go well with human society.

Although human compassion and care made him eat like a human, his mind could not process human speech; instead, he kept making wild animal sounds.