Mothers use sex pheromones to veil eggs, preventing cannibalism

Species that lay eggs but don't actively keep watch over them often protect their precious eggs from predators by laying them in communal groups or by fortifying them with toxins. However, protecting these eggs from being devoured by their own kind is a completely different game; the catch is that any anti-cannibalistic strategy needs to be an effective deterrent while remaining nontoxic to the cannibals. In a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology on January 10, Sunitha Narasimha, Roshan Vijendravarma and colleagues report how fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), which lay eggs communally, use chemical deception to protect their eggs from being cannibalized by their own larvae.

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