Why some animals eat their babies

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Email address Sign up Thank you! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. “In general, cannibalism of offspring is super widespread,” says Aneesh Bose, a behavioral ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. Bose has long studied the phenomenon of animals who turn from child-rearing to child-eating, and in 2022, he authored a review of prior research on the topic. “It’s a tool that’s in a lot of species’ tool belts,” Bose tells…