lamprologus meleagris Parenting observations

I finally got my group right and now have a bucket of tiny fry growing, I decided to keep the females separate from the male to see if i can leave the fry in with the females.
On previous occasions when Ive had fry I noticed the females eating there own fry, the fry would stray outside the shell by maybe a inch or two and the females would come over and eat them.
But that opinion has changed completely today for the better, I have had discussions with a few people as to why they do this, but today I actually found out what they are really doing,
I love to sit in front of my tanks and watch the behavior of some of my fish and to day it was the turn of the meleagris i was lying on the floor watching them when i noticed the females going over to the fry and eating them I was on the verge of pulling all three females out of the tank when i noticed that all three females were doing the exact same thing, about ten time in the space of 5mins, logic told me that if they were all doing this I would have no fry left within a hour so I started to watch them more closely.
One of the shells was slightly facing the front of the tank so I kept a close eye on this one, it was then i finally saw what the mothers were really doing,
When the fry stray to far from the shell, the mother like a mouthbrooder is taking the fry in her mouth then swimming back to the shell were she deposits it back in the shell, the three females seem to have a invisible boundary that she wont let the fry cross, amazing or what.
Im going to try and set up the video camera and catch them doing it tomorrow.

Regards les

this is common behavior with most cichlids. even angelfish, discus etc. all pick up errant or straying fry in their mouth and blow them back into the relative safety of the nest area. when this is observed for the first time it appears that cannibilism is taking place. although inexperienced or hungry/nervous/bad parents can often forget to spit out and swallow instead.

Watching this carefully with one of the best species for parental control of their babies (=Kribs, very subtle but very complex), I often wonder if the behaviour also includes teaching-the-young-a-discipline-lesson along with protecting and rounding them up.

Parental behaviour with protecting the young is a 2-way thing......and the babies and parents need to work in concert.

Ian