Filial Cannibalism

Eating your offspring may sound unthinkable, but animals from fish to birds are known to do it. Scientists have been unsure why such a behavior would have evolved, but a new study sheds light on the factors that may drive some parents to eat their young. Zoologists have observed filial cannibalism, the act of eating one's offspring, in many different types of animals, including bank voles, house finches, wolf spiders and many fish species. Paradoxically, all of the species also care for the young that they don't eat. Scientists were hard-pressed to explain how such seemingly opposing behaviors could co-exist in the same species and reasoned that there must be some evolutionary benefit to the practice. More

Kronos eating his son