Who Sucked the Life Out?

Nature's father-teen metaphor: Pipeline father's "suck the life from their young."

Few will hear of it — it being a nature story, after all — but teens in particular will feel the pain of the pipeline. That fish, looking like a straight version of the related seahorse [Earlier: Is Pops Preggers?], also is one of the very rare species where the male carries the babies. (In this case, the fertilized female passes her eggs to inside the daddy-to-be for nourishment 'til birth.)

A new study suggests that a father may be ingesting some of the hundreds of possible pipeline. However, another hypothesis of why fewer come out than go it is much more likely to those who have gone through fatherhood. In this scenario, it is not the father who feasts on the embryo, but the pipeline kiddies who cannibalize each other.