Background
Infanticide only came to be seen as a significant occurrence in nature quite recently. At the time it was first seriously treated by Yukimaru Sugiyama, infanticide was attributed to stress causing factors like overcrowding and captivity, and was considered pathological and maladaptive. Classical ethology held that conspecifics (members of the same species) rarely killed each other. By the 1980s it had gained much greater acceptance. Possible reasons it was not treated as a serious natural phenomenon include its abhorrence to people, the popular group and species selectionist notions of the time (the idea that individuals behave for the good of the group or species; compare with gene-centered view of evolution), and the fact that it is very difficult to observe in the field.
Read more about this topic: Infanticide (zoology)
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