Matriphage

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As Matriphage (from Latin mater for "mother" and Greek φαγεῖν phagein "consume" for "eat") is referred to in the Zoology certain animal species whose young animals eat their own mother.

The phenomenon that young animals eat their own mother immediately after birth is mainly known from various species of millipedes and spiders , and in rare cases also from beetles . The behavior is called matriphagia . The background to this predisposition is probably that the newly hatched young animals should have enough food available as soon as they have left their egg or their protective "nursery" (for example the spider cocoon ). As the young hatch, the innate instinct of self-preservation disappears in the mother and it stops eating or catching prey. Since the mother animal would soon perish from exhaustion anyway, it practically sacrifices itself to its own offspring in order to ensure their survival: First it fattening itself while laying eggs and "childcare", then it produces so much digestive juice that its body does literally softens. The young animals then simply suck out the mother animal except for the exoskeleton or the chitin shell .

Well-known examples of matriphage spiders are the window spider Amaurobius fenestralis and the tube spider Stegodyphus lineatus . An example of a matriphage beetle is the gloss beetle Micromalthus debilis , and the catchy tuna Anechura harmandi is also matriphagus.

literature

  • Martina Nicolls: Similar but Different in the Animal Kingdom . Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency, Houston (Texas) 2017, ISBN 9781681819419 , p. 31.
  • David Shuker, Leigh Simmons: The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems . Oxford University Press, London / Oxford (UK) 2014, ISBN 9780191030888 , p. 213.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rainar Nitzsche : Spiders. BoD - Books on Demand, 2018, ISBN 978-3-837-03669-5 , pp. 299–303 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ↑ M. Salomon, ED Aflalo et al. a .: Dramatic histological changes preceding suicidal maternal care in the subsocial spider (Araneae: Eresidae). In: Journal of Arachnology. 43, 2015, p. 77, doi : 10.1636 / b14-15.1 .
  3. ↑ Mor Salomon, Jutta Schneider, Yael Lubin: Maternal investment in a spider with suicidal maternal care, (Araneae, Eresidae). In: Oikos. 109, 2005, p. 614, doi : 10.1111 / j.0030-1299.2005.13004.x .
  4. ↑ DA Pollock, BB Normark: The life cycle of Micromalthus debilisLeConte (1878) (Coleoptera: Archostemata: Micromalthidae): historical review and evolutionary perspective. In: Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. 40, 2002, pp. 105-112, doi : 10.1046 / j.1439-0469.2002.00183.x .
  5. ↑ Seizi Suzuki, Masashi Kitamura, Kei Matsubayashi: Matriphagy in the hump earwig, Anechura harmandi (Dermaptera: Forficulidae), increases the survival rates of the offspring. In: Journal of Ethology. 23, 2005, p. 211, doi : 10.1007 / s10164-005-0145-7 .