Since Homer and the Greeks, we have been taught that cannibalism is the ultimate taboo. Why are we so drawn to the idea of people eating each other? Sensational instances of cannibalism in the West, like New York City’s “ Cannibal Cop ,” always hit the headlines. During a Lindblad Expeditions trip on the National Geographic Explorer in the Arctic, crew and passengers spotted a male polar bear hunting and then eating a polar bear cub, despite the efforts of the cub's mother to protect it. ![]() Polar bear cannibalism likely isn't a rare event, but it's rarely witnessed by people. By doing so, they mature faster and are able to get out quicker than their herbivorous brothers and sisters. What they are doing is eating their brethren in the ponds. As a result, they’ve evolved a mechanism by which a certain percentage of the tadpoles turn huge, overnight, with large jaw muscles, wild-looking teeth, and shortened digestive tracts. So if you are a tadpole, it pays, from an evolutionary perspective, to get out of the pool as quickly as possible. ![]() Because of the climate, these ponds are in danger of drying up at any moment. But starting in the 1970s and ’80s, researchers started to uncover many instances across the animal kingdom where it was completely natural behavior.įor instance, spadefoot toads, in the American Southwest, lay their eggs in transient ponds, some no larger than puddles. Initially, the party line was that the only times you would see cannibalism-unless you were dealing with black widow spiders or praying mantises-would be when it was stress-related or due to a lack of alternative forms of food. It came as a surprise to me that cannibalism was so widespread across nature. You write, “Cannibalism makes perfect evolutionary sense.” Explain that idea, with some examples, please.
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