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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]
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]
The opening scene depicts the brood parasitism of a cuckoo before introducing primary school teacher Gemma and her landscaper boyfriend Tom. He buries a dead altricial chick ejected from its nest. They drive to meet with real estate agent Martin and follow him to a suburban development of identical houses called Yonder.
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.
Brood parasitism is particularly well-known in birds such as the common cuckoo, which lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and exploits the parental effort of the host bird to raise the parasitic offspring.
They are known for their loud and repetitive calls which are similar to that of the common hawk-cuckoo but do not rise in crescendo. They are also somewhat larger and adults can be readily told apart from the smaller common hawk-cuckoo by the black patch on the chin. They are brood-parasites of babblers and laughing-thrushes.
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 ...