Female Infanticide?

McClure, P.A. (1981) Sex-biased litter reduction in food-restricted wood rats (Neotama floridana). Science, 211: 1058-1060.Well nourished mothers feed all pups equally. Food-deprived mothers preferentially give food to female offspring, actively removing male pups from teats, often resulting in the deaths of the male pups.It's not out and out killing, and I don't know how widespread such things are, but that's one example.[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 10-03-2003]

Wait, you note "under normal conditions". I suggest that food-deprivation *is* a "normal condition". Food supplies vary. Is there a reason you're looking for examples not having to do with stressful situations?If you're looking for non-"psychotic" behavior, so to speak, I think the example I gave is not a random "crazy" stress-induced behavior, but shows an adaptive response to normal fluctuations of food supply.

I could send you a .pdf of the article if you're getting hardcore about this. Send email to my yahoo.com address, username is zhimbo.The behavior isn't direct infanticide, but is "active rejection" (the author's words) of pups. It's gender specific, and the article is about the adaptive nature of this for this species. Males will lose out on body weight, and are the first to die. It's a fine line between "deliberate neglect" which leads to death and "infanticide".Apparently "brood reduction" is pretty well documented in various birds, and the McClure article lists three citations after the claim "there are few reports of litter reduction in mammals."[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 10-04-2003]