Infanticide by females is a leading source of juvenile mortality in a large social carnivore
A. K. Brown, M. O. Pioon, K. Holekamp, E. D. Strauss
The paper quantifies infanticide's role in juvenile mortality among wild spotted hyenas, finding it accounts for 24% of deaths and supports the hypothesis of social status competition as its evolutionary driver.
bioRxiv · May 2, 2020Animal Behavior & Cognition