FILIAL CANNIBALISM

FILIAL CANNIBALISM

Filial cannibalism is a specific type of size-structured cannibalism in which adults eat their own offspring. Although most often thought of as parents eating live young, filial cannibalism includes parental consumption of stillborn infants and miscarried fetuses as well as infertile and still-incubating eggs. Vertebrate examples include pigs, where savaging accounts for a sizable percentage of total piglet deaths, and cats.

Competition among a species for resources, mating opportunities, and reproductive dominance are all promoters for filial cannibalism. In order to compete well in a certain species' social structure, a parent may be compelled to practice filial cannibalism to limit the amount of energy and time they spend raising their young.

Males may compete for mating opportunities by eating the offspring of a female, in order to make that female more sexually receptive or to re-mate. By doing this, a male might be able to prolong its lifetime mating opportunities.
Female fish may compete for mating opportunities with males by raiding the male’s nest and eating the eggs inside.

Females may also use cannibalism – particularly birds and bees that live in a joint-nesting social structure – as a way to establish reproductive dominance by eating the eggs of a co-breeder.