Date: February 27, 2019
Source: Princeton University
In the
tropical jungle of Central America where predators abound, a species of cuckoo has
found safety in numbers by building communal nests guarded by two or three
breeding pairs.
Why then
do these agreeable avians sometimes ditch the collaborative lifestyle and
instead deposit eggs into nests outside the communal group, acting like social
parasites, in the hopes that other females will raise the chicks as their own?
In a
paper published online in the journal Nature, Princeton researchers show
that the cuckoos, known as greater anis (Crotophaga
major), act collectively for the most part but can become social parasites
after their communal nest is destroyed. They start the breeding season placing
all their eggs in one basket, but if predators intervene, the birds switch to a
strategy of spreading the eggs around in other nests.
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