The cuckoo tricks other birds into raising its chicks at the expense of the foster parents’ own brood. <\/p>
Cuckoos are master manipulators. After laying a solo egg in the nest of another species, female cuckoos abandon their offspring to the care of others.<\/p>
When the interloper hatches, it boots out any other eggs or hatchlings present, then tricks its foster parents into feeding it more by imitating a whole nest of chicks. The host birds then raise the chick as their own. It\u2019s a strategy known as brood parasitism, but how do they know to\u00a0adopt this strategy, when they\u2019re raised without cuckoo role models?<\/p>
Animal behaviour is influenced by nurture and nature, but in this instance, genetics holds the trump card. It\u2019s thought that multiple genes influence brood parasitism, and that these genes are passed from mother to daughter<\/a>. So, the genes that influence a female cuckoo\u2019s parenting style (along with her preference for the species whose nest she\u2019s most likely to hijack) will be consistently passed to her offspring.\u00a0<\/p> You could say that cuckoos are \u2018born bad,\u2019 or\u00a0rather\u00a0that\u00a0they\u00a0simply\u00a0are what they are:\u00a0beautiful, successful birds with an unusual lifestyle that has been honed through millions of\u00a0years of evolution.\u00a0<\/p> Read more:<\/strong><\/p> Asked by: Robert Green, via email<\/strong><\/p> To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don’t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The cuckoo tricks other birds into raising its chicks at the expense of the foster parents’ own brood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":33445,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/heres-what-made-cuckoos-the-animal-kingdoms-biggest-jerk.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The cuckoo tricks other birds into raising its chicks at the expense of the foster parents' own brood.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/33444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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