If you ’re a baby alligator , there ’s about a 1 in 16 fortune that your elders will eat you . It ’s nothing personal … it ’s just the simplest way of life for these gators to take with a irregular food shortage and keep their population stable .
Florida investigator analyze the stomachs of 267 adult alligators between 1981 and 1987 . Since some of the baby alligator had been chase , the researchers were look to find out how many of these infant gator tags had ended up inside an adult ’s stomach . The researchers discovered fifty - six tatter inside 33 unlike stomachs , with one in particular greedy gator having take 14 tag . 91 % of the cannibalise alligators were three years old or young .
After some experiments to enter out how many tags would be expected to remain in an gator ’s venter after cannibalization , the researchers determine that about 6 to 7 percent of all juvenile alligators became nutrient for their elders . This conduct , though it ’s not on the button going to avail alligator ’ warm and cuddly repute , has a sure grim system of logic to it . By eating a small-scale percentage of their young , alligator are able-bodied to preserve food resource and guarantee that their habitat has enough food to stand the survivors .
Knowing exactly how alligators near cannibalization is crucial for conservationists , because any human cause to ascertain the gator population call for to keep in thinker that the animals themselves have their own ideas on their scotch . And gators are far from alone – similar cannibalism has been observed in chimpanzees , African tea , elephants , bears , weenie , squealer , and Leo the Lion . So here ’s the real question : who ’s been reading“A Modest Proposal”to all these fauna ?
ViaLiveScience .
BiologyCannibalismPopulationScienceZoology
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