Do crappie really eat their own young?
Routinely. A 1 cm crappie fry is zooplankton-sized food swimming in dense clouds, and adult crappie treat it exactly like any other forage — in crowded, stunted populations, cannibalism on fry and fingerlings is a significant part of the adult diet and one of nature's main population brakes. There is no kin recognition in play; a school will feed through a fry cloud that includes its own offspring. This is also part of why overcrowded small lakes produce thousands of 15 cm (6 in) crappie and almost no slabs: too many mouths, including on each other.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Diet
Same topic, other species
- Do largemouth really eat frogs, mice, and even birds? — Largemouth Bass
- Do muskie eat bass — and do they ruin bass fisheries? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- Why do tiny baits out-fish big ones so consistently? — Yellow Perch
- Do pike really eat ducklings and muskrats? — Northern Pike
- Do smallmouth feed on the surface? — Smallmouth Bass
- Why are brook trout famous for eating anything? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- Why does the fishing die during the mayfly hatch? — Walleye