Hi, this is Emily from MinuteEarth.
Sometimes, a hamster mom looks at her adorable little babies and is like, 'I just want to
gobble you up'—except not in a cute way...more in an “I’M ACTUALLY ABOUT TO EAT YOU”
way.
Hamster moms are not alone—pigs, bugs, birds, snakes, primates, and fish all occasionally
nom on the next generation.
Which is weird.
Not just because we humans consider it deeply wrong to eat our own babies, but also because
making babies is the primary goal of virtually all life, so eating them, and the genes they
carry, seems like the ultimate act of self defeat.
But self-defeating impulses have a pretty straightforward way of dying out, so the fact
that species across the animal kingdom occasionally cannibalize their young suggests that it can
sometimes be a successful strategy.
For instance, hamsters appear to use baby-eating as a form of crowd control: females with litters
of 8 or 9 pups eat two of them, on average.
And when scientists have tried adding a couple pups to the litter, the hamster moms eat four.
But removing a few pups the day they’re born pretty much stops the cannibalism before
it starts—suggesting that a hamster mom eats her young to keep her litter small enough
that she can provide for the survivors and ensure they grow up to pass on their genes.
Other critters, like the Long-tailed Sun Skink, chow down on their babies only in emergencies.
When predators repeatedly threaten to eat the mother’s eggs, she beats them to it
and eats them all herself.
Which actually makes sense: if the eggs are doomed to become someone's lunch, making them
HER lunch helps prepare the mama skink for another round of reproduction.
And sometimes, kids, you know, get in the way, so they just have to go.
The male sand goby fertilizes eggs from multiple females over a short period of time and cares
for them all together in one nest.
In order to mate again, he has to wait for all his eggs to hatch, so he sacrifices the
slowpokes to free himself up for more baby-making.
In short, for critters across the animal kingdom to maximize the resources, energy and opportunities
they need to pass on their genes, sometimes it does make sense to order off of the kid’s
menu.
This video was sponsored by Audible.com, the leading provider of audiobooks, with over
250,000 downloadable titles.
Annnd, on the topic of eating one’s own kind, maybe you’ll want to check out Audible’s
audiobook version of “Miracle in the Andes,” the harrowing first-person account of a high-altitude
plane crash in the mountains of Peru, and the 72-day-long struggle for survival that
followed.
Download “Miracle in the Andes,” or another book of your choice for free, by going to
audible.com/minuteearth and signing up for a 30-day trial membership.
And thanks for watching!