It does make sense ...

It does make sense ... when you think about it.

Raising offspring is expensive. It costs you time, it costs you money, and for some species: it costs you your life. This is the grisly fate of the African social spider, Stegodyphus dumicola, a dedicated mother who can only become a mother once. Why? Because her babies will eat her.

This is what’s known as matriphagy, a form of parental cannibalism that can occur before or after birth. It’s mostly seen in invertebrates, but the African social spider is a particularly infamous example because of the way the mother actively invites her offspring to eat her. Now, the entire process of matriphagy in African social spiders had been caught on camera for the first time, and features in a new series from BBC Factual and Sir David Attenborough: Parenthood.  

A father lion patiently playing with his young cub. Image: BBC/Silverback Films/Russ Maclaughlin