Research in recent years has focused on chimpanzees and other monkeys who murder their own. Field studies in Tanzania have demonstrated that chimpanzees will attack and kill other chimpanzees, and brutally so.
In one study (that took place over a five-year period), a group of male chimpanzees directed attacks on a splinter group of chimps that had broken away from the larger group.
Each member of this splinter group was beaten and subsequently died. Young male chimps initiated these attacks, usually using their hands, feet and teeth, though sometimes stones were thrown, as well.
A study of langur monkeys illustrates the same principle at work, that of intra-tribal warfare, instigated by outcast young males.Â
The langur monkey lives in a society in which an alpha male dominates and is surrounded by numerous female langurs, all of whom bear his offspring and live in obeyance to the alpha male.
The alpha male drives off the younger male langurs from the commune; in time, some of the young males return to challenge the hierarchy of the alpha male, by mocking and attacking the leader of the 'pack.'
If the alpha langur is successful in fighting off his young aggressors, his society will remain intact and the young males will be driven off, forced to find new females of their own.
If the alpha langur is not successful, the young males then take over the troop, and systemically and brutally kill infant langurs, smashing them against the trees, crushing their skulls, until all infants are dead.
The young female langurs in the troop remain unhurt, as they are the love object of the young males.
The young males then begin to seat themselves at the head of their own helm, to take many females who will then bear offspring only to them.
Biologically, it is important for the band of marauding young males to to kill the infants, because the infants are preventing the females from bearing new young.
The females are suckling the infants, and by so doing, are incapable of having new infants.
As long as the female langur is nursing an infant, she is not menstuating and remains infertile with either her alpha male or with a newcomer.
For the newcomer male langurs to establish themselves, they must secure the sexual interest of the females.
Once the nursed infants are dead, the female langur begins to menstruate again and she becomes receptive to the young males who have just murdered all her children.
Numerous comparisons between such primate murder and humans has been drawn, likening this kind of biological determination to human stepfathers who are more likely to abuse their stepchildren.
But we can rise above such biological determinism, despite tendencies we as a species may have.
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Comments: 43 ( 4 removed by Kathryn Flynn )
As for a new male being downright required to kill off the young who don't carry their own genes, I want to really see solid evidence of how often this happens, and in what species. How is the animal supposed to be able to recognize babies that have/don't have his own genes? Since in many species mating depends entirely on smelling that the female is in estrus, maybe a little skepticism is required here. I don't personally know many chimps, but I've even seen cats described as compelled to murder kittens so they can breed with the mothers, and I've known plenty of male cats who mated with every female they could and never killed a kitten to do it. This behavior has been attributed to a lot of species as though it should be taken for granted as evolutionary fact, but I'd really like to see the evidence.
Good work! !0 for sure
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGGL_enUS176&q=male+animals+kill+offspring
It is the young males in the primate societies who have been outcast by the main group who then want to mate with the females, but must kill off all the infants, in order to do so.
In guppies, for example, you have to remove the fathers from the newly hatched guppies, otherwise they will eat their own.
The behavior among horned animals is dominance behavior, to see who will win to mate with the female.
it is not that a new male is required to kill the offspring, it is simply that the females in this society are lactating and
are not capable of mating until they stop lactating. The only way to get the females to stop lactating is to remove the infants, so the females will stop producing milk. A cruel but effective way to ensure that the females begin to menstruate again.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=
1B2GGGL_enUS176&q=male+animals+kill+offspring
You need to paste these two parts back together.
I expect that chimps are intelligent enough to kill for many reasons and that includes 'fun', certainly power, and possibly even for procreation. I doubt however that their reasons are as well thought out as most human killers are and that means that they are not really well reasoned at all, but primarily instinctive reactions that continue in the species because they work to the advantage of the individual exhibiting them.
When a new male lion takes over the pride it will kill all the other lion's young. Then breed with the females again to ensure his genes are the ones carried forward. Nature can be very cruel.
However lionesses are fierce in defending their cubs, and they band together to defend them, so the males are not always successful.
Olga, yes, it is very much a kind of personal power. Thanks for enjoying this. I do have other ideas, too.
John S., yes, the chimps do kill for many reasons..I have to see that Discovery show sometimes...Lions and housecats will kill the young; many male fishes also will kill their own babies, if not removed.
Ed, sad but true, yes.
Leah and Walker: it all makes sense now, doesn't it - the 99 percent connection and how we all behaves, as primates.
Mugg, still plenty of funnies for you!
Otis, we are a LOT more hardwired than we would like to believe, that is part of the point. We have free will, but we are driven by our instinct, our genetics, our wiring, our pre-conscious knowledge.
And yes, Kathryn, unfortuntely it is true.
Bert, I understood your point, anway. Cruel but effective Darwinian principle, eh?
Morality does not come into it.
Humans have killed for the same reasons: if the survival of our bloodline requires gaining control over needed resources that someone else has, then we have killed them to acquire (that is the nature of war, after all). Hitler demanded more "living room" on a continent that was full of other people, meaning someone had to give some up. Killing them to secure it was alright in his book.
Morality didn't come into it.
However, since we have the concept of morality, are raised with it now, and like to think of oursevles as moral people, we often reconfigure our morality to fit our perceived needs. Isn't that what Islamic extremists and their rigid, conservative Christian counterparts are doing today?