Brown-headed cowbirds show a bias in the sex ratio of their offspring depending on the time of the breeding season, researchers report in a new study. More female than male offspring hatch early in the breeding season in ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 24, 2020
1
88
The American coot is a somewhat drab water bird with gray and black feathers and a white beak, common in wetlands throughout North America. Coot chicks, however, sport outrageously bright orange and red feathers, skin, and ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 30, 2019
1
570
Scroungers and parasites seem to show up in nature wherever life produces something useful, and that includes parental care. Among birds, for example, the practice of laying eggs in other birds' nests is surprisingly common.
Ecology
Oct 9, 2019
1
94
Researchers at the University of Illinois have shown through a multi-year study that cowbirds (Molothrus ater) conform to Bateman's Principle, which holds that reproductive success is greater in males than in females when ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 30, 2019
0
22
Just as humans are usually left- or right-handed, other species sometimes prefer one appendage, or eye, over the other. A new study reveals that American robins that preferentially use one eye significantly more than the ...
Ecology
Jul 24, 2019
0
5
Evolutionary adaptations resulting from cultural change, such as humans being able to consume dairy products, are more widespread in nature than previously thought.
Evolution
Jun 3, 2019
0
436
Temnothorax americanus is a slavemaking ant found in northeastern America. These tiny social insects neither rear their offspring nor search for food themselves. Instead, they raid nests of another ant species, Temnothorax ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 28, 2019
0
40
Common cuckoos and oriental cuckoos in eastern Russia appear to be expanding their breeding range into western Alaska, where songbirds are naive to the cuckoos' wily ways, researchers report. A new study suggests the North ...
Ecology
May 7, 2018
2
53
Alberta's oil and gas infrastructure is providing a great living to the brown-headed cowbird, a bird species that tricks other songbirds into raising its young, a new University of Manitoba study finds.
Plants & Animals
Jul 19, 2017
0
118
If you are raised by other species, then how do you know who you are? Although heterospecific foster parents rear brood parasitic brown-headed cowbird chicks, juvenile cowbirds readily recognize and affiliate with other cowbirds. ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 18, 2017
0
190
