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
so there are a few reasons. the big 2 are ‘my offspring’ essentially means if they aren’t mine they don’t matter (lions) where it isn’t ‘for the good of us all’ so nothing else matters outside of my descendants
the other big one is essentially the kangaroo one. “I can survive without the child, it cannot survive without me” approach. The adult can die to save the child but even if it works (It won’t) but the child essentially dies to the elements (at best) but the adult can ‘throw away’ the child and survive itself. Quit applying human traits to this, one option is objectively better from a species standpoint
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