(Phys.org) —New research has solved a mystery as to why some birds choose not to reproduce, and instead help to guard the nests of their close relatives. This occurs in about nine percent of all bird species.
Plants & Animals
Dec 20, 2013
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Cuckoos that lay their eggs in the nest of a magpie so that their chicks can be raised by the latter better hope that their young are not raised together with other magpies. The chances of cuckoo fledglings raised in mixed ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 11, 2013
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Manipulation is often thought of as morally repugnant, but it might be responsible for the evolutionary origins of some helpful or altruistic behavior, according to a new study.
Plants & Animals
Aug 19, 2013
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(Phys.org) —William Feeney and Naomi Langmore, researchers with Australia's Research School of Biology, have found that fairy-wrens learn to distrust cuckoos by watching other nearby fairy-wrens react to them. In their ...
Some species of birds reproduce not by rearing their own young, but by handing that task on to adults of other species. Known as brood parasitism, this habit has been most thoroughly researched in the cuckoo. Previous research ...
Ecology
Apr 8, 2013
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The eggs laid by two African bird species have evolved different color patterns over a period of just 40 years, according to new research published in The American Naturalist. The quick change appears to be driven by an unwanted ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 16, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Only a few days old and still blind and naked, chicks of the African greater honeyguide kill their newly hatched foster siblings in order to eliminate competition for parental care, new research from the ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 7, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Some female zebra finches foist a part of their eggs on their neighbours. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen discovered that in every fifth nest there is one egg that is not ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 22, 2010
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Reed warblers live with the threat that a cuckoo bird will infiltrate their nest, remove one of their eggs, and replace it with the cuckoo's own. This 'parasitism' enables the cuckoo to have its young raised by unsuspecting ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 4, 2009
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Reed warblers use mobbing as a front line of nest defense against parasitic cuckoos, according to a new report published online on January 29th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Cuckoos act as parasites by laying ...
Jan 29, 2009
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