Young flies cannibalize the plump

Smaller larvae feast on larger ones

OTTAWA — Larval fruit flies, supposedly relentless devourers of rotting fruit, at times leave their regular laboratory food to stalk, kill and group-cannibalize some of their older, fatter fellows, scientists report.

Young larvae of the common lab fruit fly species Drosophila melanogaster will at times gang up on and kill one of their fatter colleagues.