FILIAL CANNIBALISM IN BURYING BEETLES
FILIAL CANNIBALISM IN BURYING BEETLES
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DOI：
10.1007/bf00303208
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发表时间：
1987-01-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
BARTLETT, J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
BARTLETT, J
在许多动物群体中，杀婴是一种常见的现象，但孝顺的食人行为，即父母故意杀害和食用自己的幼崽，是极其不寻常的。埋葬甲虫Nmicrophorus vesillodes Herbst的食物供应有限，以埋葬的身体的形式，用来抚养它的幼崽。在重10-15克的身体上，实验室中的卵子大小是这样的：完全孵化成功将产生比身体所能支持的更多的幼虫，而不会严重降低最终幼虫的个体重量。父母通过杀死和吃掉几乎一半的第一阶段幼虫来减少孵化。这表明，在野外，卵和新孵化的幼虫可能被大量捕食，多产的卵是一种保险。如果存活率异常高，在争夺食物之前，多余的幼崽就会被父母杀死。
Infanticide is a common phenomenon in many animal groups, but filial cannibalism, the deliberate killing and consumption by parents of their own young, is extremely unusual. The burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides Herbst has a limited food supply, in the form of a buried corpse, on which to raise its young. On corpses weighing 10-15 g, clutch size in the lab is such that complete hatching success will produce more larvae than the corpse can support without severe reduction in the individual weights of final instars. The parents reduce the brood by killing and eating almost half of the first stage larvae. It is suggested that, in the field, predation of eggs and newly hatched larvae may be heavy, and that the excess eggs are laid as an insurance. If survival is then unusually high, superfluous young are killed by the parents before competition for food can occur.