Latest Cannibalism Stories

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The idea that the female of a species would, after completing coitus, approach, kill and eat her mate is a sentiment that instills, if not fear, unease in many the male reader. This scenario, in fact, is exactly how the Black Widow spider got its name. However, according to researchers out of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, the popular knowledge behind this spider might not necessarily be so. Study authors Lenka Sentenska...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New Evidence suggests the settlers at Jamestown, Virginia in 1609-1610 resorted to cannibalism in the face of a harsh winter with a shortage of food stock. Archeologists working closely with the Smithsonian have made the discovery after careful analysis of human remains unearthed at the site in 2012. William Kelso of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project at Preservation Virginia, and his archeological colleagues have been working at...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In some sexually reproducing species, the competition between males to pass on their genetic material ends with conception. However, for sand tiger sharks that competition extends into the female’s uteri where baby sharks cannibalize one another until only one remains. According to a new study in Biology Letters, a female sand tiger shark typically mates with multiple males, but the results of in utero cannibalism could result in the...

Report shows knowledge of overcrowding, disease publicly denied by Cayman Turtle Farm for more than five months NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an Independent Veterinary Assessment document recently made available to the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) from July 2012, the popular island and cruise line attraction Cayman Turtle Farm, or CTF, has had knowledge of animal health and endangerment problems on their property for more than five...

South Korean customs officials have discovered thousands of pills filled with powdered human baby flesh, which some residents of the country believe is a miracle cure for a variety of medical issues. According to BBC News reports published Monday, officials report that they have discovered nearly 17,500 capsules containing powdered flesh from dead infants and fetuses since last August. The pills, which some believe have the power to cure diseases and provide a stamina boost, were being...

Male praying mantises are more likely to engage in risky mating behavior if they have not had recent access to females, as reported Apr. 25 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Female praying mantises are known for their cannibalistic behavior toward their mates, and males take a large risk when they attempt to reproduce. In the current work, led by William Brown of State University of New York at Fredonia, the researchers found that males modulate this risk by altering their approach rate...

One prominent wildlife expert and photojournalist has gathered pictures proving that arctic polar bears trapped on land will turn to cannibalism in order to survive. Jenny Ross, described by UPI as an environmental photojournalist, witnessed a polar bear eating what she initially believed was a seal carcass, then dragging it across the ice at Olgastretet, a stretch of water in the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. However, as she got closer, she realized that it was, in fact, the...

Archaeologists in Spain have discovered the remains of a possible family of 12 Neanderthals who were killed 49,000 years ago. The researchers say that markings on the bones show the unmistakable signs of cannibal activity, with the group probably being killed by their peers. The remains were found in a cave in the Asturias region of Northern Spain.  Scientists believe that the six adults and six children who were found in a cave probably lived and died on the surface before the ground...

SYDNEY, March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- It takes literary skill to bring out the humanity of an evil protagonist. "This is always a challenge. Take Hannibal Lecter. If Hopkins had not given him a fierce intelligence and a grizzly pitch black sense of humor, no one would have liked him," says Shane Briant, author of thriller, Worst Nightmares (Vanguard Press). ISBN 978-1-59315-514-8 "He was, after all, almost an insane beast at times. Yet somehow the writing made the audience want him to escape....

In the pipefish, the male cares for the offspring. Apart from the ones he sucks the life out of. The discovery of filial cannibalism in the pipefish is now creating a stir in the research world.The pipefish, which is related to the seahorse, has an unusual way of organizing childcare. In this fish species it is the father who takes care of the eggs, which he receives from one or more females and then looks after in a brood pouch on the tail, where a kind of male equivalent of the placenta...