Cannibalism is an ecological relationship in which an animal feeds on another of the same species (intraspecific) .
Just as predatismo is a disharmonious or negative relationship (there is damage to one of the individuals involved, while the other benefits), and in predatismo, predators hunt and ingest animals of other species (interspecific) .
Cannibalism among animals
Cannibalism is usually a mechanism for controlling the population (when food is limited) or a way of ensuring genetic input (sexual cannibalism).
Females of species of birds, dogs and cats that live in captivity, can eat the young in situations of stress or due to hormonal imbalance.
Examples:
Aquarium guppies fish regulate the size of the population by devouring the young. Some species of ants usually eat the younger ones that are sick and, if there is a great shortage of food, ingest the remaining healthy youngsters.
The female praying mantis, right after copulation, feeds on the male to ensure nutrients and generate healthy offspring. This habit also occurs in certain species of spiders.
A male lion when approaching a new female with cubs, to ensure dominance and that the offspring is yours, devours the young lions. The female without offspring then quickly lets herself be fertilized by the dominant male.
Anthropophagy
Human cannibalism or anthropophagy, when a person eats one or more parts of the human body, was a common practice of prehistoric peoples on most continents. The term cannibalism is believed to be derived from the Spanish name Caribe ( Caríbales or Caníbales ).
This act was generally related to religious, spiritual or magical rituals, in which practitioners believed they acquired characteristics and abilities from those who were eaten.
In certain Brazilian indigenous tribes, cannibalism as a ritual occurred, as described by travelers like Hans Staden, among others.
Currently, it still occurs in some tribes in regions of West and Central Africa, New Guinea, Australia, among the Maori of New Zealand and in some islands of Polynesia and Fiji.
Anthropophagy is a topic that arouses curiosity and cases of extreme situations such as serious accidents with many victims have already been reported, in which there is no food and the consumption of human meat becomes a matter of survival, other situations are related to mental disorders.