The Word For First Anniversary Of Death

Infanticide in the lion.

This is a highlight for us civilized humans who have inherited this idea of Rousseau that the nature is good and the evil creation of human societies: "The male lions are killers of young lions! " Infanticide is indeed something very common among polygynous mammals (several females to one male dominant) including lions.

[To give you an overview here is a little video of the murder conscious and ruthless lions "cute" by the "king of beasts ..."]

If this behavior is common, it it has been selected, there is never a coincidence in nature (or almost). And yes, if absolutely wants to kill Simba Scar in "Lion King" there has a biological reason for this, it is not pure evil, though it is certainly very very bad ...), which may then well be the reason?

To understand, see things from the perspective of the lion ...

You're a lion in the prime of life, dominated by your male hormones, your aggressiveness, you can win the battle against the previous dominant male. Bravo is a beautiful victory, but useless if your harem of lionesses are unavailable for reproduction ... And so, they are all busy-care for their cubs. Raising a cub last two years, two years during which the females are no longer in heat! How frustrating, especially since the probability of being still in power in two years is rather low, you can not afford to wait. Moreover what is the point protect the male cubs previous (ie lowest since defeated in the final battle) ...

And if you took a drive killer? More cubs, so the females available for breeding, and a whole range of new cubs inheriting the passage of nature "a little" aggressive their father! Future killer lions in power, which recur also more easily pass on their genes "aggressive" etc.. etc.. And that's how infanticide is selected!

How do we conclude?

-First we consider here is that the behavior phenotype and that from the moment he is "heritable " (which is also able - h ² index) can be selected even if you have not yet identified genes of behavior ... Natural selection always takes place elsewhere on a phenotype.

-Then we see here that the natural selection occurs at the individual and not at the species level. So even if infanticide is counterproductive for the number of lions is still selected because at the individual level it is productive. "EXIT" so the concept of "survival" or "Good of the species."

-Finally, we can equally and finally draw a line on the alleged morality of nature. The concept of good and evil is foreign to nature. It is a vision of man who applies his thinking to a biased picture of its environment. And of course you will notice that the default antropocentrisme / morphism is a bias very hard to eradicate if we are to judge by the second paragraph this item ...