Oophagia

The oophagia (from the Greek oion = "egg" and phagos = "eater") describes a form of nutrition through eggs , whereby the term is usually only used for nutrition through eggs of the same species. If the eggs are fertilized or later stages of development, the diet is known as Adelphophagy or even cannibalism .

In many species, the offspring are nourished by the mother animals via so-called "nourishing eggs". These are those eggs that are laid as primary or (rarely) exclusive food for the offspring. In the offspring, special feeding stages can develop, which are anatomically specially equipped for this diet. An example of this are the poison dart frogs of the genus Oophaga , whose bromeliad tadpoles are fed by their mother's eggs.

Another type of oophagia may occur. a. in semi-social bees such as the Near Eastern Xylocopa species, in which the eggs of the other egg-laying females are eaten away in the struggle for social dominance in the nest until a clear dominance has set in. Correspondingly, this is a form of infanticide .

literature

• Keywords "oophagia" and "adelphophagy" in: Herder-Lexikon der Biologie. Spectrum Akademischer Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg 2003. ISBN 3-8274-0354-5