The probability that male rats would kill and eat rat pups was inversely related both to age of the pup and to the amount of prior exposure to pups. Other experiments investigated (a) the effects of hunger and subsequent food satiation on killing of neonatal rat pups, (b) the generalization of experience in lulling neonatal rat pups to the killing of weanling rats and of mice, (c) the effect of nonkilling experiences with either neonatal rat pups or with weanling rats in reducing the probability of killing neonatal rat pups, and (d) the effects of these variables when mouse pups were the stimuli. The data suggested that (a) neonatal pups, conspecific or not, are killed because they are perceived as food and not because they trigger aggressive response systems, (b) older pups do trigger aggressive response systems, and (c) species-specific characteristics of rat pups trigger maternal response systems in the male rat with a subsequent decrease in the incidence of rat pup killing.With the exception of Johnson (1972), reviewers of mammalian aggression consider conspecific killing to be a very rare event (e.g., Lorenz, 1966;Moyer, 1968;Tinbergen, 1968). Nevertheless, the young of a given species may be particularly susceptible to attack by adult conspecifics. Conspecific young are sometimes attacked and killed by feral lions (
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