With short hectic wing strokes that are hardly raised above the body, the flight of the cuckoo is not the height of elegance. Nevertheless, their wings carry them over 16,000 kilometres a year. Martin Wikelski from the Max ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 14, 2014
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(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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A new study provides seventeen records of the cuckoo wasp genus Cleptes from China, nine of which are beautifully coloured new to science species. The study, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, is the first revision ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 13, 2013
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New research shows that cuckoos have striped or "barred" feathers that resemble local birds of prey, such as sparrowhawks, that may be used to frighten birds into briefly fleeing their nest in order to lay their parasitic ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 16, 2013
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New Zealand's unique biodiversity has been strengthened with the identification of a new endemic songbird family—the family Mohouidae—which includes the endangered Yellowhead, the Whitehead and the Brown Creeper.
Plants & Animals
Aug 30, 2013
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Like cuckoos, honeyguides are parasitic birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests and dupe them into raising their young. Now scientists reveal that, unlike in cuckoos, the resemblance between honeyguide eggs and those ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 20, 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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Some birds use a different breeding strategy to others to avoid cuckoos infiltrating their nests, say scientists.
Ecology
Mar 14, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Countless drawers containing hundreds of thousands of bee specimens lie in insect museums and private collections across North America, some dating back to the 1800's. These historical collections are a treasure ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 18, 2012
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