本·范·艾伦（Ben Van Allen）在收集毛毛虫，他在路易斯安那州立大学（Louisiana State University）做博士后研究时，曾看到一些毛毛虫会把同类当午餐吃掉。他本人并没有因为毛毛虫减少而伤心，而是利用这一点研究起同类相食现象。
“一般来说，吃掉自己的同类很滋补，它们拥有你体内存在的所有营养物质，所以这是一顿易于消化的美餐。”
“同时，这么做还会减少自己将要经历的竞争：在相同区域和你争夺相同食物的同类又少了一个。而且，要找到同类通常也很方便，因为大家都生活在同一片区域。”
于是，范·艾伦和同事开始收集毛毛虫，用来研究诸如飞蛾和蝴蝶等鳞翅目的疾病传播情况。观察到同类相食现象后，他们想要知道，既然毛毛虫的口味相投，那如果吃掉受疾病感染的同类，是否会对种群个体造成威胁，但又有益于群体生存，因为……[查看全文]
Cannibalism Quells Contagion among Caterpillars
Ben Van Allen collects caterpillars. While doing postdoctoral research at Louisiana State University, Van Allen saw that some of the caterpillars were having others for lunch. Rather than cry over his losses, Van Allen took advantage of the cannibalism for his research.
“Generally speaking, it’s nutritious to eat the same species, because they have all the nutrients that are already inside you, so it’s an easy-to-process meal.”
“It also reduces the amount of competition you are going to experience – it’s just one fewer individual trying to eat the same food you are, in the same area. And it’s usually easy to find members of the same species too, since they live in the same place you do.”
Van Allen and colleagues collected the caterpillars to study disease transmission in lepidoptera—moths and butterflies. After observing the cannibalism they wondered if their subjects’ appetite for each other might be dangerous for the individual—if it ate an infected cousin—but benefit the group...[full transcript]
封面图来源：Unsplash
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