Infanticide

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the phenomenon of infanticide in the animal kingdom, particularly among primates. It discusses the two ways of looking at the phenomenon from an anthropological perspective and then looks at it from the biologist's point of view. The paper particularly discusses the case for infanticide as a reproductive strategy and suggests that it is a strong case which provides interesting insights into the behaviors of other primate species, especially humans. The paper then describes some of these insights.

From the Paper:

"Still, infanticide should be regarded as a reproductive strategy among males. After all, it remains within the female's best interest to mate with a newly dominant male, even if he has killer her infant. Ultimately, this is because the female, having lost her offspring, needs to remain reproductively competitive and to mate with a male. Additionally, if she mates with a non-dominant male, who has not killed her offspring, she runs the risk of the dominant male repeating his actions. Accordingly, she is obligated to mate with the dominant male in order to decrease the risk that her infant will be killed again. It may also be the case that the mothers who are victims of infanticide are physically incapable of preventing the guilty males from mating with them because of the differences in size between the sexes."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Janson, Charles H. and Carel P. Van Schaik. Infanticide by Males and Its Implications. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

More papers on Infanticide:

• Research Paper # 97329 : "Infanticide in England and Scotland"
• Research Paper # 56324 : "Infanticide"
• Research Paper # 30249 : "Female Infanticide"

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