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Nature's 7 meanest mommies

burying beetle

Photo: Peter/flickr

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Burying beetle

The burying beetle is not a bad mom because of the home and food she provides her young: larvae typically move into a mouse carcass their mother and father have buried, and the mother feeds her young by eating the carcass and regurgitating the mouse meat. No, it’s not the dead mouse house and dead-mouse-vomit for dinner, but rather what happens during feeding. The larvae beg for food and the mom feeds them, but the one left last in line? Yep, mom eats it. It’s likely that the beetle mothers are thinning their brood to meet the food supply, as the beetles typically produce more offspring than the carcass can support. That’s some diet for the female beetle — dead mouse flesh and baby beetles.