Eat up, also known as eat up easy is a yukkuri form of suicide.
Yukkureimu after performing "eat up" for its young ones.
General[]
When a yukkuri believes it's unable to take it easy anymore, by clearly uttering the words "Eat up", it can end its life by (somehow) splitting in half and allowing other yukkuri to eat it. Usually this is a last resort when the yukkuri feels it can not in any way take it easy. In several occasions, however, the "eat up" behavior may be tied to less selfish reasons; a parent yukkuri unable to hunt hunt enough food for its offspring may "eat up" and leave its bean paste for them. While cannibalism is usually frowned in the yukkuri society, "eat up" seems to be an accepted form as technically the koyukkuris didn't kill their parent. Furthermore, it's implied that by doing "eat up" the parent is able to pass more some genetic memories to its offspring, thus increasing their probability to survive in the wild.
A milder form of Eat up easy may happen when a parent yukkuri willingly punctures its skin, spilling part of its bean paste for its young ones to eat. However, in this case the koyukkuri won't gain access to the increased amount of "genetic memories" (seemingly held in the paste core, or somewhat tied to consumption of the whole body, of a huge amount of it) and the parent may be able to survive until it finds some food to replenish the lost paste. However, this could kill the yukkuri as it may bleed out trying to feed its koyukkuri.