Why Nonhuman Primates Engage in Infanticide
When anthropologists began to study infanticide, it was seen only as abnormal and counterproductive behaviour. Anthropologists could not discover any positive reasons for primates to engage in infanticide. This is partly due to the fact that infanticide is seen as criminal and deviant in human society. A second reason was due to a lack of evidence and insufficient research done about infanticide. Initially, infanticide was considered bizarre because under natural conditions, animals of the same species rarely kill each other. Anthropologists and scientists accepted infanticide and cannibalism, but only under certain conditions, such as overpopulation. Anthropologists began to study infanticide more closely when they began to file more cases of intraspecific killings.
Primarily, primates engage in infanticide as a reproductive strategy. Male primates can increase their reproductive chances by killing off offspring that were fathered by other males. After a female primate loses an infant, she is no longer in estrus. Estrus, in female mammals, is the time period when female primates are more likely to conceive, and it correlates with ovulation in humans. (Jurmain, Robert, Lynn, Kilgore, and Wenda Trevathan, 2013) When …show more content…
Sexual selection, is a type of natural selection that operates on only one sex within a species. It is the result of competition for mates. (Textbook) By engaging in infanticide, the male primates are improving their opportunities to reproduce by eliminating dependent offspring of a future mate. Therefore, they are reducing the competition for mates and improving their own reproductive fitness. Parental manipulation of progeny is where parents increase their own reproductive success (fitness) by eliminating particular offspring. This is seen in nonhuman primates societies when males engage in
When anthropologists began to study infanticide, it was seen only as abnormal and counterproductive behaviour. Anthropologists could not discover any positive reasons for primates to engage in infanticide. This is partly due to the fact that infanticide is seen as criminal and deviant in human society. A second reason was due to a lack of evidence and insufficient research done about infanticide. Initially, infanticide was considered bizarre because under natural conditions, animals of the same species rarely kill each other. Anthropologists and scientists accepted infanticide and cannibalism, but only under certain conditions, such as overpopulation. Anthropologists began to study infanticide more closely when they began to file more cases of intraspecific killings.
Primarily, primates engage in infanticide as a reproductive strategy. Male primates can increase their reproductive chances by killing off offspring that were fathered by other males. After a female primate loses an infant, she is no longer in estrus. Estrus, in female mammals, is the time period when female primates are more likely to conceive, and it correlates with ovulation in humans. (Jurmain, Robert, Lynn, Kilgore, and Wenda Trevathan, 2013) When …show more content…
Sexual selection, is a type of natural selection that operates on only one sex within a species. It is the result of competition for mates. (Textbook) By engaging in infanticide, the male primates are improving their opportunities to reproduce by eliminating dependent offspring of a future mate. Therefore, they are reducing the competition for mates and improving their own reproductive fitness. Parental manipulation of progeny is where parents increase their own reproductive success (fitness) by eliminating particular offspring. This is seen in nonhuman primates societies when males engage in