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Male pheasant‐tailed jacanas commit infanticides to avoid cuckoldry when paternity of eggs is doubtful

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain infanticide, killing the young or destruction of eggs by conspecific adults. We report cases of infanticide in the polyandrous pheasant‐tailed jacana (Hydrophasianus chirurgus) of Taiwan. In 2004, three males and one female bred at our study site. The female mated with the three males sequentially and laid clutches for all of them. Infanticidal behaviour was observed in all males and in all but one clutch, the first clutch of the breeding season. The infanticidal males threw out the first one or two eggs of a clutch, but then accepted replacement eggs and incubated normally. Because the intervals between copulation with different males were short (1–10 days) and sperm can remain viable within the female reproductive tract for at least 4–5 days, sperm competition among the males may have been intense, and the paternity of the first few eggs in each clutch was doubtful. We suggest that male pheasant‐tailed jacana may use infanticide as a strategy to avoid cuckoldry when the paternity of eggs is in doubt.