Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats

This fascinating study describes the natural histories of these brood parasites and examines many of the exciting questions they raise about the evolution of cheating and the arms race between parasites and their prey.

Brood parasites fill their armoury with adaptations including exquisite egg mimicry, rapid laying, ejection of host eggs, murder of host young, chick mimicry and manipulative begging behaviour: ploys shown by recent research to have evolved in response to host defence behaviour or through competition among the parasites themselves. While many host species appear defenceless, accepting parasite eggs quite unlike their own, many are more discriminating against odd-looking eggs and some have evolved the ability to discriminate against odd-looking chicks as well.

How is this arms race conducted? Will defenceless hosts develop defences in time, or are there constraints which limit the evolution and perfection of host defences? And why are so few species obliged only to lay eggs in host nests? Have host defences limited the success of brood parasitism, or is it in fact much more common than we suspect, but occurring mainly when birds parasitize the nest of their own kind? All of these puzzles are examined in descriptions of the natural history of each of the groups of parasites in turn.

Here is a book with wide appeal, both to amateur naturalists fascinated by this most singular and macabre of behaviours and by ornithologists and ecologists interested in the evolution of ecology and behaviour. The story takes us from the classic field work by pioneer ornithologists such as Edgar Chance, Stuart Baker, Herbert Friedmann and others, through to the experimental field work and molecular techniques of today's leading scientists. We visit brood parasites in Europe, Asia, Japan, Africa, Australasia, and North and South America, to look at some of the world's most interesting birds and some of biology's most interesting questions, many of which still beg answers from ornithologists in the future.

Brilliant illustrations by David Quinn illuminate the species discussed, showing many behaviours never before illustrated and conveying the thrill of watching these astonishing birds in the wild.

Autorentext

Nick Davies is Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He was born on the Lancashire coast, where night-jars and pink-footed geese inspired his passion for birdwatching from an early age. After a first degree at Cambridge, he did his doctorate at the Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University, studying the territorial behaviour of Pied Wagtails. He then returned to the Zoology Department at Cambridge, where he did his famous work on the variable mating system of the Dunnock.

For the past fifteen years he has studied the interactions between the Common Cuckoo and its hosts, and his students have worked on other brood parasites, including cuckoos in Africa, cowbirds in South America, and the Moorhen, a species that parasitises its own kind. His previous books include Dunnock Behaviour and Social Evolution and (with John Kreb) An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and his awards include the Medal of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and a Cambridge University Teaching Prize.

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Acknowledgements

1 A monstrous outrage on maternal affection
2 One hundred brood parasites and some puzzles
3 The Common Cuckoo and its hosts
4 Coevolution of host defences and Common Cuckoo trickery
5 How to spot a cuckoo egg
6 Driving parents cuckoo
7 Bronzecuckoos in Africa and Australia
8 Manipulative nestlings and Mafia tactics
9 Who wins?
10 The Brownheaded Cowbird and its conquest of North America
11 Old and new hosts of the Brownheaded Cowbird and conservation project
12 Shotgun Shiny and specialist Screaming Cowbirds with cowbirds and cuckoos compared
13 Mimicry of host chicks and host songs
14 Cheating on your own kind
15 Origins

Notes on the chapters
The one hundred species of brood parasitic birds
Scientific names of birds and other animals mentioned in the text
References