Definition
A set of aggressive behaviors destined toward the elimination of younglings, usually a dependent infant or hatchling. The attacker often obtains a fitness benefit by targeting the offspring of conspecifics. Due to the costs associated with losing a youngling, parents often employ an array of physiological and behavioral tactics to decrease the risk of infanticide.
Introduction
Although nowadays research on nonhuman infanticide has lost most of its controversial nature, three decades ago studies on this subject generated heated debate concerning the adaptive function of eliminating infants (Sommer 2000). Due to the costs associated with producing and rearing offspring, killing younglings was interpreted as a pathological behavior with no apparent adaptive benefits. This...
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References
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Peñaherrera-Aguirre, M., Figueredo, A.J. (2019). Infanticide in Nonhumans. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3047-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3047-1
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