Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds , insects and fish . The brood parasite manipulates a host , either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry ...
The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. Hatched cuckoo chicks may push host eggs out of the nest or be raised alongside the host's chicks. [17] A female may visit up to 50 nests during a breeding season. Common cuckoos first breed at the age of two years. [2]
These species are obligate brood parasites, meaning that they only reproduce in this fashion. The best-known example is the European common cuckoo. In addition to the above noted species, others sometimes engage in nonobligate brood parasitism, laying their eggs in the nests of members of their own species, in addition to raising their own young.
The common cuckoo brood parasite removing the reed warbler eggs from their own nest. Egg tossing or egg destruction is a behavior observed in some species of birds where one individual removes an egg from the communal nest. [1] This is related to infanticide, where parents kill their own or other's offspring. [2]
As a brood parasite, the Horsfield's bronze cuckoo does not build its own nest but will use a host species' nest to lay its eggs. The breeding season for the Horsfield's bronze cuckoo relies on their host and they will lay one to mimic that of the fairy wren or thornbill's egg, [ 2 ] [ 12 ] an elongated pinkish-white egg, that is speckled with ...
A big driver of evolution in parasitic cuckoo species is the hosts available to them. Cuckoo species with many potential hosts are more likely to split off into multiple species that lay their eggs in the nests of specific hosts. The little bronze cuckoo is a good example of this because it is the brood parasitic cuckoo with the most subspecies ...
Interspecific brood parasitism evolved twice independently in the order Passeriformes, in the cowbirds (genus Molothrus) and in the family Viduidae. [1] Instead of making nests of their own, and feeding their young, brood parasites deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds. [2] The vampire finch is a parasite, but is not brood parasitic. [3]
An example of such an evolutionary arms race between a brood parasite and its host, is the phenomenon of egg rejection and egg mimicry, its counteradaptation. [2] [3] Cuckoo eggs have been found in the nests of over 100 different species, of which 11 have been identified as primary host species and a similar number as secondary. Egg patterns ...