In mathematics, the Bott cannibalistic class, introduced by Raoul Bott (1962), is an element ${\displaystyle \theta _{k}(V)}$ of the representation ring of a compact Lie group that describes the action of the Adams operation ${\displaystyle \psi ^{k))$ on the Thom class ${\displaystyle \lambda _{V))$ of a complex representation ${\displaystyle V}$. The term "cannibalistic" for these classes was introduced by Frank Adams (1965, p.151).