Cuckoos aren't the kind of parents you'd want. They never raise their young ones, leaving that job to other birds. They achieve this by laying their eggs in other expectant birds' nests, who treat them as their own and take ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 13, 2014
0
1
Eye size likely plays a role in the contest between avian brood parasites—birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other species—and their hosts, who sometimes detect the foreign eggs and eject or abandon them, scientists ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 28, 2021
0
29
While many species of scuttle flies are associated with ants, their specific interactions with their hosts are largely unknown. Brood parasitism (attacking the immature stages, rather than the adult ants), for example, is ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 31, 2017
0
71
Old-school field work meets cutting-edge technology! For decades, researchers have been making artificial eggs out of plaster, wood, and other materials to test how birds identify and reject the eggs that invading "brood ...
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2015
0
19
Tired jokes about men, women and sense of direction have existed since the dawn of time. A new study at Western, however, has shown female brown-headed cowbirds perform spatial tasks better than their male counterparts – ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 28, 2014
0
12
Brown-headed cowbirds are generalist brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of many other bird species and letting the host parents raise their young. A new study seeks to understand the strategies cowbird chicks ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 13, 2022
0
20
Some birds lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species and let the host parents raise their young. A new study finds that in times of environmental flux, these brood parasites "diversify their portfolios," minimizing ...
Ecology
Aug 21, 2020
0
138
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
0
0
If a restaurant owner fails to pay the protection money demanded of him, he can expect his premises to be trashed. Warnings like these are seldom required, however, as fear of the consequences is enough to make restaurant ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 17, 2014
0
0
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
0
0
