Why Do Animals Eat Their Own Babies?
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
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It might seem pretty dark from a human point of view, but for some animals, feasting on your own offspring is the best way to ensure you and your other babies might have a more successful life.
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Why do some animals treat their Offspring as owned "Pets"?
No hamster??? 🙄🙄
It's possible the skink also eats the eggs so the snake doesn't learn that's an easy meal.
@@KingOfGamesss🎉
@@SynBelcuore Equals...not "Property"
My sister and I got hamsters when we were kids, assured by the pet shop they were both female. Well, one was male, so the other got pregnant. The mother ate a couple of them, but left 2 alive. Then she died one night, and the babies ate most of her face.
Why does every hamster story end so brutal
Jesus
Sounds like the plot of a Shakespearean play
@@wolfkinic2062 because people don’t care enough about hamsters to care for them properly :(
Cute
If you have kids, you can kind of understand
Dude that comment is pure gold XD
This is great 😂
I think you should consider this. If it’s a urge, it may have been genetically transferred to your kids. I don’t know if I want that type of genome mixing in our pool of free loving genetics, so it may actually be the most moral and upstanding thing you can possibly do (by preventing that thought from happening in the future generations)
Also if you don't have.....
Is that what happened to Charles' kid? Your family therapy sessions must be intense
Takes "ordering off the kids menu" to a whole new meaning.
Nothing like a piece of succulent baby, after all.
Jfc
HAH
What a modest proposal that is
Lol
I was surprised rats and other rodent creatures didn't get mentioned--that was a rude awakening to me as a kid, we thought aww how cute mama's caring for her babies. Then, a day later, several were gone (despite being in a tight enclosure). We found a half eaten body, and later witnessed the mom chowing down
One reason why comments on animal vids from people that overly humanize them ("See! Mamas always do what it takes to protect their kids" and that kind of noise) irk me.
sounds like your fault
The 'tight enclosure' seems to be the problem.
@@AirLancer Moms everywhere: Life's hard. Trust me, this is for your own good.
*Nom nom*
I was excited when I saw the thumbnail of this video (let me explain!!) I am a biology major at a research-heavy institution. We frequently hold biology seminars for doctors around the world to come and explain their findings. It's a crazy coincidence that most of the articles cited here for giant salamander research were actually presented to us at my college by Dr. Takahashi himself! I remembered seeing these images in this video also used in his presentation, which is just so cool to see^^
That is so cool. I bet that was really interesting
Grandma: "You're so cute I could just eat you up!"
Yup. I was always gonna get "cooked up tender - especially my toes" 😂
@@KOKO-uu7yd specific... O_o
You're grown, so you were probably the favorite who made it 😁
@Hank, for the skinks there might be a benefit for the species as a whole by the mom eating the eggs rather than letting the snake get some of her investing energy back. If the majority of the time when a snake attacks a nest it is eventually rewarded with meal it will seek out that type of nest, on the other hand if the snake frequently puts a lot of effort into a particular nest and never gets a reward, it will seek out an easier meal. So eating her own eggs might be the equivalent of humans using bear proof canisters -- the purpose isn't so much about saving the food (or even garbage) for ourselves, but rather to not teach the bear that humans are an easy meal source.
I originally thought that's why campers and hikers are advised to fight back if a mountain lion (cougar/puma) attacks you: even if it kills you, you want them to learn that humans aren't easy meals. However, on further reflection, I realized that it's to increase your probability of survival. But both are good.
That was my first thought: It discourages the snake, never getting anything out of the effort. So eating the eggs actually have several benefits.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Oh, the skink isn't likely to knowingly consider it. It's possible such actions became instinctive as they helped the ones who did it to survive better.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn They don't do it because they have imagined it first. It's just instinctual behaviour that is passed on because it works.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn If you cannot imagine at least two reasons for observable behavior patterns, maybe you need to rethink your stance.
In #5's case, I could definitely see that kind of feeding (especially given that it's done after the colony is well established) acting as a way to inoculate the larvae against potential pathogens. After all, small quantities of pathogenic material on the queen's mouthparts could be transferred to a larva and better prepare its immune system for the kinds of pathogens it will encounter as an adult.
#5 is a reverse mammal. The babies nurse the parent...
I think it might actually be the other way around, the larva's immune systems might be working as a shield for the queen, ants lack digestive cultures which makes them more susceptible to infections from the food they eat, if a larva is sick it will be removed but they can't check the health of the prey before attacking and can't necessarily ensure its safe to eat, if the babies get sick thats one thing but if the queen does it can spell ruin for the whole colony so they are a step to ensure that doesn't happen
@@ConstantChaos1 That's a really interesting take I hadn't considered! Thanks for posting that!
@@Jobobn1998 well you inspired it by making me think of ant immunology lol
Fascinating conversation y'all, I now have much to ponder, thank you
We had a cat in our foster program that got named Hannibal, her one surviving kitten was dubbed Clarice
Grew up in the country. Rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, spiders, etc…seen each devour their babies up close. Nature is intriguing! Oh, and I didn’t eat my young😂
You sure? It seems to be the popular thing to do in the country.
I recommend giving it a shot! A real delecacy!
Dogs!?
In some countries, political parties eat their own also, if they don’t adhere to 100% of the herd groupthink/dogma 100% of the time.
yet
People often forget or don’t realize, it’s humanity that is the weird ones having strayed from a path of survival and selective evolution.
We are weird but not because of that. Animals that have few children (humans, elephants, whales...) very rarely, if ever, eat them.
@@juanausensi499 eating babies aside humans are very weird, as we do not follow natural laws of survival anymore. Humanity's way of life is very unnatural compared to the rest of the worlds critters. We try to save everyone and everything, those who obsess over money become blinded to the worlds issues and for the most part, the genes we past forward aren't selected because they survived, they're selected because we allow them to stay in the gene pool when Nature would otherwise remove them, for example eating babies.
While it is nice that we as a species can feel safe enough to live like this I do think it is bad to be so out of touch with nature like we are, cause when things get bad, and they will get bad, be it days from now or a few centuries from now, humanity will find it hard to cope if an extinction level event happens, normal peaceful every day life will be out the window for many.
In high school biology, we were each assigned a mouse in a cage. The cage lid had a triangular fold where we could put food. One day I came in to find that my mouse had given birth to several babies. That weekend was a long one. I put as much food in the fold as I could (I had an idea of what was going to happen because it had happened to my lab partner). Unfortunately, when I came back in the following Tuesday, all the babies were gone.
The teacher explained that it was in the mother had a better chance of passing her genes to the next generation by keeping herself from starving and going on to have another litter. Of course, she had no way to know that she was in a lab and would never get to procreate again. :(
Honorable mention: scorpion mothers mate when there is a plentiplentiful food supply and keep their babies on their backs who grow by eating tiny food particles that drift by, and the mother scorpion will eat her babies when she feels hungry, the only ones growing to adulthood being the ones that were lucky enough to grow big enough to walk away before they got eaten
A classic story of boy meets grill.
I was a schoolteacher, so I thoroughly know why some animals eat their young!
Uhhhhh….
Mama Cats do it when they have any born dead kitten, removing potential health risk for other kittens and recovering some strength after grueling labor
Me, looking at my baby: "Because they're delicious"
I wonder if the skinks eating their own eggs helps deter predators spending the energy to try. Like "after all that and I got nothing"
Whenever people talk about animals eating their own babies, they impliy there malice or apathy involved in doing so. But it mostly seems like an act of desperation for factors beyond their control.
But it mostly seems like an act of desperation for factors beyond their control. For example being a starving animal in the wild lol, and not a mormon on his sofa
As it is with humans "mercy killing" their little ones
We don't know whether the salamander feels apathetic or not.
@@CalLadyQED
Humans are frequently apathetic or cruel towards their offspring and they kill their offspring for various reasons, not just for food.
@@MrCmon113 We vastly overestimate how special we are. We've proven animals can care, go into depression enough to die, and experience all sorts of things we do.
The reality is anything we feel can be found in animals because we are animals.
This video made me realize that natures parental instinct are closer to a statistics class
all of evolution is a statistics class really, and human values like love, family bonds, and morals are just evolutionary byproducts
I was just looking for an apartment after the application fees and requirements this feels relevant.
Good luck, fellow human.
I used to work with a cat breeder, one morning I went in to feed and clean everybody, got to the room that had a cat and her recent litter....was a huge shock to see a kitten head sitting on the floor, just staring at me! Mom had eaten the rest of the body😵
OMG that is traumatic.
that happened to my childhood best friend's cat's babies... multiple times. she was well taken care of... it was soooooo weird and scary for us little kids😭
The voices of generations
Morgan freeman, David Attenborough, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Hank Green
There's some kind of fish that sucks up all of their babies everytime there is a predator nearby. As soon as the danger passes they spit them back out again.
When I was a kid we had a couple of dogs, and one of them was specially aggressive. She was quite vicious which made us really scared of her. She ended up having 6 puppies, and I vividly remember the dog securing her territory and attacking anyone who dared come touch her newborns, we all thought she was just being protective of her puppies, as nature would posit. The next day, my dad went to check up on the dog and he found out there were only three puppies left, there was dry blood strewn all over, and that was not even the most horrific part. My dad managed to take away the puppies and later that day I recall seeing the dog with something dark in it's mouth, going towards the garden. I told my aunt, and when the dog had left the area she dug up where the dog had kept its treasure only to find that it was one of her puppies head.
She was stressed
@@Boomer289-ol2vv she was possessed
I had a female rabbit that gave birth over night. The next morning, there were 6 little baby heads with her. I'm off of rabbits for life.😂
That's shocking to me. I would have thought rabbits never ate meat.
@@l.n.3372 it's common for rabbits to eat their children.
@@l.n.3372 Supposedly, a lot of first time mothers do it, or it's caused by stress.
@@l.n.3372 Basically all herbivores eat meat for one reason or another. If they eat too much of it, the saturated fat causes them heart disease.
The males get territorial like that. I had one kill the first litter... Crazy thing is, until then I didn't understand why other rabbit farmers kept the males separated
It's not just the benefit of gaining the energy of eaint the eggs. The mother lizard also removes food from the area, showing the predator that there is nothing to be gained here and please don't bother trying again later.
Touching on yesterday's video, I really want to know why laboratory mice do this. At the lab I work at filial cannibalism is rampant. Just today I bagged another day old litter of half eaten corpses. From what Ive observed there is no consistent provocation setting this behavior off.
something tells me the lab mice are stressed from being in the lab
@@drewdorkhead I mean, they're also inbred as heck because lab mice have to be _identical_ , that's a large part of the point, getting a bunch of near-clones so you can be absolutely sure that any differences between two groups are based on the one factor you deliberately changed. However, this also means that lab mice are... kind of strange and unhealthy in general, so as another recent Sci Show episode showed there are current efforts in making other lines of mice for laboratory use that are more 'normal' and come in a diverse set of varieties, but are still _relatively_ consistent within a variety.
I'd totally believe that something in their rather limited genetics might either be making them more stressed, or making the babies seem sickly to their parents, or making the parents generally more likely to eat the babies, or some combination of factors. It might have very little to do with their actual treatment, but the nice thing about lab mice is they're all (more or less) the same, and scientists spend a lot of time staring at them, so if they have such a tendency (or something that triggers the behavior), it's almost certain somebody somewhere has explained it and wrote at least one paper on the subject.
@@05Matz Completely agree, sounds like you've got some experience in that field. Bunch of factors in play considering they don't have normal "population" characteristics. I more of just meant that the conditions they are raised and kept in could make them more susceptible to being stressed
I remember many years ago when i was in 5th grade we were learning about aquariums and terrariums and got to make some in groups out of 2 liter bottles, and we had guppies and little snails for our aquariums. Well, we put them in the cut in half 2 liter bottle and then went to lunch, and when we came back most of the groups were missing guppies and some had half eaten ones. We got to have an unexpected lesson on cannibalism that day 😅
Every season the National Aviary in Pittsburgh hosts some peregrine falcon cams for the birds that nest in the cities, and a few years ago a female brooded three eggs fully to hatching, and then ate the babies one by one as they hatched. Since she did it immediately, researches that usually check and band the birds never even got their hands on the chicks, so they had no way of knowing if she did it because the babies were unwell in some way or otherwise. Still a mystery!
It's sometimes easy to forget that species are in fact individuals with imperfect physiology and individual behavours. For example, if a female falcon had been nest-raiding before, she wouldn't necessarily distinguish between 'my young' and 'yummy hatchlings'. Or, there could be a confounding factor related not to the chicks' health, but to the parent's compromised ability to develop a parental bond and appropriate behaviours.
@@luciesimpson6437 exactly! There are so many factors that could contribute to it, and it all happened so fast. It's a fascinating world!
@@luciesimpson6437 Oh god the "thought process" going from "my eggs my darling babies" to "who left these delicious morsels here?"
I'm a bit surprised no birds made the list. They frequently eat their own eggs and chicks if there is a genetic defect or they don't think the environment can sustain them. Adult chickens will even happily cannibalize each other if given the chance. Once they see blood, they are drawn to it like sharks.
"So why do animals eat their own babies"
First image is of a dog with puppies
We all fear what we might be about to be shown
I was a 4H kid. I raised rabbits for show but if we didnt carefully monitor and watch the mothers we could wake up and find that the rabbit, a consummate herbivore that only ate plants. could, and would eat their children if they were runts sometimes. Not every time but we found a lot of tiny feet in those nest boxes. Even chickens will cannibalize themselves and it doesnt take a food shortage to initiate it
I went to a school called Church Farm School. Worked on the school farm (and went to church). Saw mother pigs eat dead pigs after mothers accidentally rolled over on them and crushing them.
The best one is crab. The way they casually pick them up one at a time and plop them in their mouth like popcorn. It's simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.
Because if you eat someone else's babies, they tend to get upset.
Hey! I knew about vampire ants from when I used to watch Ants Canada. Cool to see Sci Show cover rhem.
I JUST did an presentation on Monday on a recent journal article about filial cannibalism in Hellbender Salamanders. Sending this to my professor because I think she’ll appreciate the coincidence :)
AFRICAN clawed frogs will willingly eat their own tadpoles - but they like eating those of an endangered South African frog even more.
Infinite food glitch
If your chickens have a worm load they will eat their own eggs to help get a protein boost to help fight off the parasites.
Great imagery, I can picture the scene
Also when caring for chickens, it's vital to mix in shells with their feed, lest they eat their own eggs in a bid to boost their calcium levels
I'm surprised that they didn't mention the zoo where the jet fighters flew past low to the ground and stressed a whole load of animals, including Tigers, into eating their offspring.
Really eye-opening content about a bizarre aspect of animal behavior. The explanations provided are both intriguing and enlightening!
Why don't we?
Yeah eating the stragglers is a solid parenting strategy.
One also interesting case of filial cannibalism is male calico cat. Male calico cat is an anomaly, they have XXY chromosome (Klinefelter syndrome, male cat can only naturally orange or black cuz they only have one X chromosome). Mama cat will eat them right after giving birth if she spot them. One of my cat named Owi is male calico, when my neighbor cat giving birth I instantly separate 3 of the calico offsprings, turns out one of them is a male. One other thing that I notice that every other cat is hostile to Owi, like literally every cat in my neighbourhood, when Owi approach them they instantly hiss at him or attack him. I don't really know the reason of this. Owi live for 6 years, his early life was a struggle cuz he got sick easily and severely underweight cuz he only drink formula milk, but he strive and able to grow up to be a healthy and chonky boi
@Talitha yes, that's why I never allow him to go out without me
It's all about Risk and Returns.
- Mr. Horney Fish
Before birth control, the only solution was to eat real baby back ribs...dripping with sauce.
All conservatives ranting about how motherhood comes "naturally" to anyone female should watch this video.
I mean if it can come naturally to a male fish 🤷♂️
Some analytics recommendation site must be recommending videos about animals eating their own babies... Tsuki just made a video about this.
Gives "favourite child" a whole new slant
Well the simplest answer to this question?
It's because they taste so dang delicious!
Honestly the Dracula ants are basically just mammals in reverse
Could it be that some animals find that their babies are magically delicious??? 🌈 ❤🌛⭐️🍀♦️🤣
There are no mammals and birds among these examples, but I'm pretty sure there are instances of mothers from these classes eating their offspring. Rodents, for example, come to mind. I'm sure there aren't many cases, though, due to the very nature of mammals and birds, and only ocurr in extreme circumstances (sickly babies, stillborn).
When I read the title, first obvious answer that popped into my head was "because their hungry"
A very different kind of baby back ribs.
As a woman that saw cat cannibalisim,this is still intense
Same reason people smell their farts. Everyone loves their own brand.😂
I appreciate that reference!
@@calebdonaldson8770 whats the reference?
@@shifty1927 Fat Bastard. Austin Powers 3.
Anyone who has had guppies in a fish tank knows what they do
Animal: “I brought you into this world, and by God, I’ll take you out!” Chomp, chomp!
SciShow consistently delivering quality content as always. Been a while since I watched one but as usual impressed with all the interesting content packed into a video and so glad to see Hank!
Have you tried raising a teen???
Sometimes you just didn’t wanna be a parent. 🤷🏻
man some of these experiments sound horrible. imagine using these on humans...some of them are downright nightmare inducing.
Thank you! I will be notifying my children of this option tonight.
I'm remembering that movie Nicholas Cage was in called Mom and Dad (I think) and I think it was based around things like this
I was hoping you would touch on dogs, many times I've seen the mum eat stillborn babies which makes total sense imo as it's just energy for a struggling mummy who has many mouths to feed at that point
Imagine your parents just eating your siblings and saying "MMMMM PROTEIN". Is this the trauma animals go through?
"GIT IN MAH BELL-AY!!!"
These titles and editing are really nice lately
Watching eagles it appears the parents favor the strongest of the babies by feeding it first and feeding it more, whilst
leaving the weaker to pick up the scraps.I understand the reason, but it's pretty disturbing to watch.
Then they rip the weak apart and feed it to the others.
I remember that episode of walking with. 😄
Just reminded of Chris Evans in Snow piercer.
Eve looked at an apple and thought it looked scrumptious
"Because it's so much fun, Jan! Get it!"
And this doesn’t even touch on all the critters that munch on their on their stepchildren
Makes sense. Weird that we don’t ever.
Hamsters do it because... resources. Hamsters moms be like: "Look kid, I'm saving you a hard life, you're the least likely to be able to defend yourself in the long (2?3 years tops?) ahead because of that limp you were born with. It'll suck for you, it'll suck for me, it'll make everything less good for your siblings. Now, now, don't cry, come here *hug*... *eats baby hamster*
Somewhere, an ant is evolving a Phillips head.
8/10 Burying beetles agree with eugenics.
Because they are hungry. Give me my science award
1. Good source of protein
2. Tasty
3. Relatively cheap
This whole video I was waiting for the Dracula Ants! Thank you!
Hamsters will eat their babies and sometimes their own siblings.
If VSauce made this video "Babies are delicious, are they?"
My dog ate her pup that was born with a deformity, not too sure how she knew that baby wasn’t normal; just makes you think about how much they know and don’t know about the world.
Many species don't develop feeling.
Learned a lot from your video! ❤
I think big cats will do the same, but I think the moms get depressed after.
I kept thinking you were talking about "bunny" eggs. I was confused lol 😂
Every time I read babies in my head I hear Ze Frank pronouncing it
See “a modest proposal”
So hank? - Should humans follow suit?
Humans aren't insects or small animals. Humans are a large mammalian species. Large mammalian species tend to have fewer offspring and the parents tend to invest a lot in the offspring. That's why baby cannibalism is very rare in big mammalian species. Insects and smaller living creatures tend to have many, many offspring and they invest little in their offspring.
When you plugged the Group Theory course, I accidentally heard, "Food Theory," and I imagined MatPat screaming the tagline in the background.
The real question is why don't we?
Guppies. Ended up breeding the bastards to feed my frog, crawdad, and gecko. She liked the fish more than her usual crickets
Cats do it. But cats are goofy. Humana want to keep them alive cause we think to much
It's one of the most frustrating things about fish keeping.