Last week I read an article about brood parasites. A brood is a nest or group of animals, and a parasite is an animal that benefits off of a different animal, but it usually causes harm for the other animal. A cuckoo bird is called a brood parasite because instead of building a nest, wasting energy on finding more food, and risking their lives fighting off predators, the cuckoo finds the nest of a different bird, and lays it’s egg in that. The parents of the bird are almost guaranteed the survival of them and their offspring. After the cuckoo bird hatches in the different nest, it uses its legs and back to shove the other eggs out of the nest, because the other eggs will compete with the cuckoo for food. Even though it’s real offspring are killed, the parent will continue to raise the cuckoo as if it were it’s own. Sometimes, before the cuckoo hatches, the parent will notice a difference in the parasite egg, but for fear of killing one of their offspring, they leave it be.
I chose this article because it looked very interesting. I wanted to know more about this weird bird’s habit. I had never heard of a bird doing this before, but it turns out that more than one species of bird does it. This article is important for society. It is important because it also spoke about the brood parasite being a positive thing. When the cuckoo replaces two or three eggs in a nest, it means that instead of the parents starving to give food to their babies and the babies starving with them, the parents survive and so does the cuckoo. Another pro is that the fallen eggs provide an easy meal for a starving animal, which can help save its life. In other articles, only the cons are shown. That is why this one is important.
Do the parents ever notice that the bird they’ve raised looks nothing like them? If they do, what do they do about it? How did cuckoos find out that they can leave their eggs in a different bird’s nest?
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/bird-fish-insect-parenting-cuckoo-brood-parasite
