This is Scientific American 60 Second Science. I'm Emily Schwang.

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 least, 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. Van Allen's study is in the journal American

Naturalist.

It was released at the same time as a study in the journal Nature, Ecology, and Evolution.

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