Re: Interrelation between Sex and Death



I mentioned infanticide as an interrelation between sex and death. It
exists in many mammals and other species. What I found most interesting
was the case in Dolphins. Specifically, male dolphins attacking and
killing cubs to free up more females for sex. Here read this. Some male
bears apparently do the same thing. Although I have no hard evidence I
think infanticide among humans has occurred for similar reasons.


Dolphins: Flipper or Killer? - evidence of infanticide among bottlenose
dolphins
Science World, Oct 18, 1999 by Melissa Stewart

New research reveals a dark side of the mammal.

In the summer of 1997, a dead baby bottlenose dolphin washed onto a
Virginia beach. Its body was badly bruised; it had broken ribs and a
punctured lung. One telltale clue gave scientists a grim surprise: bite
marks that matched the exact pattern of the teeth of an adult
bottlenose. Researchers concluded an adult dolphin had murdered a young
baby or calf, a practice known in nature as infanticide.

"This is a dramatic change from the way people think of dolphins," says
Dale J. Dunn, a veterinarian pathologist, a specialist in animal
diseases. No kidding. When most people think of dolphins, they think
Flipper, not Killer. Since ancient Greece, dolphins have been
celebrated in art and myth as frolicking creatures that protect
shipwrecked sailors from ocean predators. Today, delighted fans still
cheer dolphin antics in aquariums and marine parks, and swimming
alongside captive dolphins in places like the Florida Keys has boomed
into a tourist craze.

Now scientists are amassing startling evidence that suggests the
beloved animals have a violent side as well. Dolphins seem to be
killing porpoises, a related sea mammal, and baby dolphins in droves,
wielding their long snouts as clubs and their jagged teeth to slash
their victims to death. Can it be that dolphin behavior simply
resembles that of most large animals, who are capable of being playful
or violent by turns?

Dolphins belong to a food web that interconnects all marine organisms.
Above, each yellow arrow leads from food to predator. In general,
smaller creatures are food for larger creatures. But tiny
microorganisms feed on and decompose even the largest critters after
they die and sink to the sea floor (red squiggles). Humans, also part
of the web, net many kinds of sea animals for food. They often trap
dolphins by accident in fishing nets.

RELATED ARTICLE: Cannibal Animals

Dolphins have joined a growing list of animals that researchers now
realize are vicious killers.

Experts have identified more than 1,300 animal species that kill their
own kind. Many of these animals eat their victims and are called
cannibals. These include praying mantises, black widow spiders, tiger
salamanders, horned frogs, sharks, damselfish, great egrets, lions and
bears.

The idea of cannibalism may make your skin crawl, but from an
evolutionary point of view it makes sense. Male brown bears sometimes
attack and devour bear cubs that aren't theirs in order to get cub moms
to mate with them instead.

Dolphins, however, are more like hyenas since they kill but don't eat
their own kind. When a female hyena has twins, one usually kills the
other to eliminate a potential rival for mates and social rank.3

COPYRIGHT 1999 Scholastic, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group


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