i am cringe, but i am free

i couldnt find anything about *accidental* cannibalism but it is actually a whole thing, called Filial cannibalism. i've gone down a whole rabbit hole here, and im gonna link the papers i found bc awoag

essentially - mouthbrooders do not eat at all for the brooding period, so have plenty of physiological changes and reductions in growth that can harm them in future reproduction cycles. If this is too bad, they'll take off the unfertilized, or youngest eggs and eat them!

partial cannibalism (only eating a few of the eggs) may be something to benefit the future of the current surviving eggs, and total cannibalism is a "fuck it ill try again next time" method

i am making an assumption that there is something physiological to stop them doing this accidentally? the only papers i could find talk about deliberate choices! if anyone else with more experience than a 30 minute rabbithole search wants to weigh in that would be nice!

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MANICA, A. (2002) ‘Filial Cannibalism in Teleost Fish’, Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 77(2), pp. 261–277. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1464793101005905.

Okuda, N. and Yanagisawa, Y. (1996) ‘Filial Cannibalism by Mouthbrooding Males of the Cardinal fish,Apogon doederleini, in Relation to Their Physical Condition’, Environmental Biology of Fishes, 45(4), pp. 397–404. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00002532.

I have also seen my dimis swallow when startled. Its impossible to tell if its accidental or purposeful, but I’ve seen one swallow when I reached into the tank to adjust their heater.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from others in my conservation group that clutch size can be very inconsistent. Dimidiata males are passed each egg individually by the female, so you can get a very accurate population count if you’re patient. A normal clutch size is 20, but some people report as few as 4 making it to being free swimming. Considering the fry are just eating their egg sacks, and wouldn’t be experiencing starvation, its pretty likely that the dad was snacking.

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Transformers is very very cool im not saying more just trust