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This is Scientific American 60-second science. I'm Emily Schweng. 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, at speaking, it's nutritious to eat members of the same species because they have

all the nutrients that are already inside you.

So it's a very easy to process meal.

It also reduces the amount of competition you're 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 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

by removing the infected individual from the population.

Our main point is that while that is an individually risky thing for a cannibal, as populations are more cannibalistic,

they actually start preventing diseases from getting into the population in the first place.

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