Heres why parents eat their young!!!

Gr8KarmaSF

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By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
posted: 06 February 2008 07:00 am ET


Kids taking too long to grow up? Just eat 'em.
When offspring don't move out from home, humans might gently encourage their children to leave, but sand goby fathers might devour them. These new findings shed light on why parents might cannibalize their own young.

A wide range of animals gobbles their own kids — polar bears, burying beetles, hamsters, wolf spiders and a range of fish species. Such actions are puzzling, given all the time and energy that goes into producing offspring that are supposed to continue one's genetic legacy.

To further understand why such cannibalism might happen, scientists focused on the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus), a fish in which the males alone take care of the eggs.
"Overall, dad does a pretty good job of taking care of the eggs, except for one thing — he tends to eat about a third of them," said researcher Hope Klug, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Helsinki in Finland. "Based on previous work in this species, we know that the males aren't just doing this because they're hungry — even when they have excess food, they continue to eat a really large number of their own eggs."

The question the researchers had going in: If a father is going to eat his offspring, which offspring will he eat?
The researchers had male sand gobies each mate with two females, one after the other. The males then raised both their clutches of eggs at the same time.

The scientists found the males preferred to eat larger eggs — which take longer to hatch — from the second female they spawned with. They conjecture the fish do so to cut down on the amount of time spent caring for their young, thereby enabling the dads to reenter the mating game sooner.

Sand goby dads have to care for thousands of eggs "until they hatch — about one to two weeks — and during this time he isn't able to attract any new females," Klug explained. Eating his young might "allow him to increase the total number of offspring he produces over the breeding season."

The researchers noted this work highlights the potential conflicts that exist between parents and offspring in animals. "As humans, we tend to think of parental care as a very loving and nurturing behavior, which it of course is most of the time," Klug told LiveScience. "But sometimes there is a darker side to parental care, and understanding behaviors such as filial cannibalism often requires a very close look at what's going on."

Klug noted there are several reasons parents might eat their young, none of which are mutually exclusive. For instance, they could be weeding out inferior offspring, or they could very well be hungry.
"Understanding why animals behave the way they do is essential for a range of applied applications, such as conservation programs," she added. "For example, many of us have probably heard about the polar bear mom that ate some of her cubs in a German zoo recently. Simply assuming that such behavior is abnormal is probably not a very productive approach in the long term. Instead, it might be more useful to ask what causes animals to exhibit such behavior."
Klug and her colleague Kai Lindström detailed their findings online Feb. 6 in the journal Biology Letters.
:popcorn:
 

Gr8KarmaSF

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enabling the dads to reenter the mating game sooner.
Makes me wonder if taking out the female once eggs are laid will help?
 

Acer

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I remember reading that after laying eggs, a hormone causes female fish to fast for 12 hours... basically enough time for her to move away from the eggs before she wants to eat again.
 

Kok Master

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my female fh just ate her eggs within 24 hours. they are in my office at home which i am in all day. i think she just gets nervous with the traffic. next week when she lays eggs again i am going to cover the tank. if that doesn't work i am going to separate the female. if he eats the eggs too i am going to try and milk him and separate them both from the eggs. if that doesn't work i will pee in th tank.
 

JayK1320

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So how long is it recommenced to leave the mother in with fry? I have a Peacock cichlid that just spit the babies, I do not want her to eat the fry, is this anything I need to worry about?
 

jr monster fish

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Fish on Fire;1953771; said:
If you know anything about animals at all, the info that the guy provided is all rather, shall we say, common sense.
Mabie so but its re-assuaring to have an actual study to back up what you already know.:)
 

rainbowfishpc

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Not sure but I think female guppies will eat they're young to "protect them" from other fish. Its like saying, I I'm afraid you will eat my kids so I'm gonna eat um first. What stupid parents! At least, that's what I've heard they why they do it. Either that or they're just plain stupid.
 

DiverDan

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for the men out there, there are others animals we probably don't want to mimic.

Google what a preying-mantis does to her mate afterward :)
 
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