i couldnt find anything about *accidental* cannibalism but it is actually a whole thing, called Filial cannibalism. i've gone down a whole rabbit hole here, and im gonna link the papers i found bc awoag
essentially - mouthbrooders do not eat at all for the brooding period, so have plenty of physiological changes and reductions in growth that can harm them in future reproduction cycles. If this is too bad, they'll take off the unfertilized, or youngest eggs and eat them!
partial cannibalism (only eating a few of the eggs) may be something to benefit the future of the current surviving eggs, and total cannibalism is a "fuck it ill try again next time" method
i am making an assumption that there is something physiological to stop them doing this accidentally? the only papers i could find talk about deliberate choices! if anyone else with more experience than a 30 minute rabbithole search wants to weigh in that would be nice!
MANICA, A. (2002) ‘Filial Cannibalism in Teleost Fish’, Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 77(2), pp. 261–277. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1464793101005905.
Okuda, N. and Yanagisawa, Y. (1996) ‘Filial Cannibalism by Mouthbrooding Males of the Cardinal fish,Apogon doederleini, in Relation to Their Physical Condition’, Environmental Biology of Fishes, 45(4), pp. 397–404. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00002532.
Takeyama, T., Okuda, N. and Yanagisawa, Y. (2006) ‘Filial Cannibalism as a Conditional Strategy in Males of a Paternal Mouthbrooding Fish’, Evolutionary Ecology, 21(1), pp. 109–119. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-006-9127-7.
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