Sometimes a mom hamster watches her adorable little babies and thinks, "they are chewable" but not cute ... more like "I WILL REALLY EAT YOU" And hamster moms are not alone - pigs, insects, birds, snakes, primates and fish all can eat their descendants. Which is weird. Not just because we humans consider it wrong to eat babies, but also because making babies is the goal principal of almost everything that lives, so eat them, and the genes they carry, seems to be the ultimate act of self-destruction. But the self-destructive impulses have a rather direct way of disappearing, so the fact that species in the animal kingdom occasionally eat their young suggests that it can sometimes be an effective strategy.
Hamsters seem to eat their babies to control the population:
Females with litters of 8 or 9 young eat 2 of them, on average. And when scientists tried to add 2 little ones within reach, the mother hamster eats 4. But remove some pups on the day of their birth practically stops cannibalism before it starts suggesting that the hamster mom is eating her cubs to keep the litter small enough so that she can feed the survivors and be sure they will grow up to pass on their genes. Other beasts, like the long-tailed skink, swallow their babies only in emergencies. When predators threaten to eat the mother's eggs, she takes them by surprise and eats them herself.
What Makes Sense:
If the Eggs are ordered to serve a meal, making it HIS meal helps prepare mom skinks for another phase of reproduction. And sometimes children, you know, are bothersome, so they have to leave. Male sand goby fertilizes eggs several females in a short time and takes care of all in one nest. To reproduce again, it must wait for all the eggs to hatch, so he sacrifices the laggards to be available to make more babies. In summary, so that the creatures of the reign animal maximize resources, energy and the opportunities they have need to transmit their genes, sometimes it makes sense to order the children's menu.
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Nice fact.
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