Oophagy sometimes ovophagy, literally "egg eating", is the practice of embryos feeding on eggs produced by the ovary while still inside the mother's uterus. The word oophagy is formed from the classical Greek ᾠόν and classical Greek φᾱγεῖν. In contrast, adelphophagy is the cannibalism of a multi-celled embryo. Oophagy is thought to occur in all sharks in the order Lamniformes and has been recorded in the bigeye thresher, the pelagic thresher, the shortfin mako and the porbeagle among others. It also occurs in the tawny nurse shark, and in the family Pseudotriakidae. This practice may lead to larger embryos or prepare it for a predatory lifestyle. There are variations in the extent of oophagy among the different shark species. The grey nurse shark practices intrauterine cannibalism, the first developed embryo consuming both additional eggs and any other developing embryos. Slender smooth-hounds , form egg capsules which contain 30-80 ova within which only one ovum develops while all other ova are ingested and packed to an external yolk sac. The embryo then develops normally without ingesting further eggs. Oophagy is also used as a synonym of egg predation practised by some snakes and other animals. Similarly, the term can be used to describe the destruction of non-queen eggs in nests of certain social wasps, bees, and ants. This is seen in the wasp species Polistes biglumis and Polistes humilis. Oophagy has been observed in Leptothorax acervorum and Parachartergus fraternus, where oophagy is practiced to increase energy circulation and consume more protein. Polistes fuscatus use oophagy as a method to establish a dominance hierarchy; dominant females will eat the eggs of subordinate females such that they no longerproduce eggs, possibly due to the unnecessary expending of energy and resources. This behavior has also been observed in some bee species. Bee species include Xylocopa sulcatipes and Bombus ruderatus, where queen bees will eat the larva deposited by workers or ejected them from the nest in order to maintain dominance over the female workers.
