im just doing an assignment, and i was wondering, is the protection of eggs by Calloselasma rhodostoma a form of altruism?

is not all parental care such? often some species of animal will go to great lengths to continue their gene strain.

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i know but is it not a social trait? because her siblings etc. eggs arent protected, just her own. is it more of an individualistic trait?

sorry if that seemed a bit illegible, i meant isnt altruism a social trait

I would say more species specific than social.

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altruism is a social trait but any parental investment in ones offspring can't really be considered altruism because:
The more offspring survive then the greater the parents fitness in the grand scheme of things, so really she's incressing her own darwinian fitness and so this could not be classed as altruism.
True altruism is haed to find, hope that makes sense. lol.

Altruism is an act which sacrifices your own reproductive success to boost the success of another. As her "reproductive success" is defined by how many offspring she has, caring for offspring is a purely selfish act - Natural Selection has favoured the method which produces the most offspring, so she can obviously maximise her own success by having fewer clutches but caring for them, rather than having more clutches, but not caring and consequently having more mortalities.

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