Infanticide by mammalian mothers

(Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) The killing of rivals' offspring represents a violent manifestation of competition, and a significant source of offspring mortality in some mammalian populations. Previous research on such infanticide has focused on males, but a new study by Dieter Lukas from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Elise Huchard from the Institut des Sciences de l'Évolution, Université Montpellier shows that infanticide by females is also ...