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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.
Hodgson's hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx nisicolor), also known as the whistling hawk-cuckoo is a species of cuckoo found in north-eastern India, Myanmar, southern China and southeast Asia. Hodgson's hawk-cuckoo is a brood parasite. The chick evicts bona fide residents of the parasitized nest, thus becoming the sole occupant.
The channel-billed cuckoo (Scythrops novaehollandiae) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is monotypic within the genus Scythrops. [3] The species is the largest brood parasite in the world, and the largest cuckoo. [4] It is found in Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia; additionally, it is vagrant in New Caledonia and New Zealand.
The common cuckoo is a species of cuckoo that exhibits brood parasitism in the nest of a different species. [11] They accomplish this by watching the nest of a potential host, and, once the host leaves the nest, the female cuckoo will remove one of the host's eggs and will replace it with one of their own. [11]
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 ...
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 ...