I was watching a nature documentary where a crab produced several dozen babies, and then turned around and started eating them. If she needed the nutrients so badly, why not just have fewer kids? From a thermodynamic standpoint that would preserve more calories.
I’ve also seen footage of birds brooding, laying, and then hatching multiple eggs, only to push half of the chicks out of the nest. That’s such a huge investment of time and energy. Why not just lay fewer eggs?
In other situations it is more understandable: A male lion might kill another male’s offspring to make room for his own. Cuckoos push other baby birds out of the nest so they can be adopted by the parents. But many cases of infanticide in the wild just seem time-consuming and wasteful.
In: Biology
Some animals have lots of babies often, like rabbits. Some animals usually have only one baby and it takes them a long time to have that baby, like elephants.
For animals that have lots of babies, they may stop raising the babies when it gets too hard to raise them, or only raise some of the babies. For animals that only have one baby, it makes more sense to keep trying to raise that one baby. Animals don’t think about this, it’s not a choice they make, but over time, it just worked out this way.
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