Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes. The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae, respectively. The cuckoo order Cuculiformes is one of three that make up the Otidimorphae, the other two being the turacos and the bustards. The family Cuculidae contains 150 species, which are divided into 33 genera.
The cuckoo, common cuckoo, European cuckoo or Eurasian cuckoo is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals.
The American coot, also known as a mud hen or pouldeau, is a bird of the family Rallidae. Though commonly mistaken for ducks, American coots are only distantly related to ducks, belonging to a separate order. Unlike the webbed feet of ducks, coots have broad, lobed scales on their lower legs and toes that fold back with each step to facilitate walking on dry land. Coots live near water, typically inhabiting wetlands and open water bodies in North America. Groups of coots are called covers or rafts. The oldest known coot lived to be 22 years old.
The brown-headed cowbird is a small, obligate brood parasitic icterid native to temperate and subtropical North America. It is a permanent resident in the southern parts of its range; northern birds migrate to the southern United States and Mexico in winter, returning to their summer habitat around March or April.
The grasshopper sparrow is a small New World sparrow. It belongs to the genus Ammodramus, which contains three species that inhabit grasslands and prairies. Grasshopper sparrows are sometimes found in crop fields and they will readily colonize reclaimed grassland. In the core of their range, grasshopper sparrows are dependent upon large areas of grassland where they avoid trees and shrubs. They seek out heterogenous patches of prairie that contain clumps of dead grass or other vegetation where they conceal their nest, and also contain barer ground where they forage for insects, spiders, and seeds. Grasshopper sparrows are unusual among New World sparrows in that they sing two distinct song types, the prevalence of which varies with the nesting cycle. The primary male song, a high trill preceded by a stereotyped series of short chips, is reminiscent of the sounds of grasshoppers and is the origin of this species' name. Like some other birds of the central North American grasslands, this species also moves around a lot, not only via annual migrations, but individuals frequently disperse between breeding attempts or breeding seasons. Grasshopper sparrows are in steep decline across their range, even in the core of the breeding distribution in the tallgrass prairies of the central Great Plains. The Florida grasshopper sparrow is highly endangered.
The Asian koel is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes. It is found in the Indian Subcontinent, China, and Southeast Asia. It forms a superspecies with the closely related black-billed koels, and Pacific koels which are sometimes treated as subspecies. The Asian koel like many of its related cuckoo kin is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of crows and other hosts, who raise its young. They are unusual among the cuckoos in being largely frugivorous as adults. The name koel is echoic in origin with several language variants. The bird is a widely used symbol in Indian and Nepali poetry.
Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of certain animals, brood parasites, that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's.
The shiny cowbird is a passerine bird in the New World family Icteridae. It breeds in most of South America except for dense forests and areas of high altitude such as mountains. Since 1900 the shiny cowbird's range has shifted northward, and it was recorded in the Caribbean islands as well as the United States, where it is found breeding in southern Florida. It is a bird associated with open habitats, including disturbed land from agriculture and deforestation.
"Fixed action pattern" is an ethological term describing an instinctive behavioral sequence that is highly stereotyped and species-characteristic. Fixed action patterns are said to be produced by the innate releasing mechanism, a "hard-wired" neural network, in response to a sign/key stimulus or releaser. Once released, a fixed action pattern runs to completion.
The term cuckoo bee is used for a variety of different bee lineages which have evolved the kleptoparasitic behaviour of laying their eggs in the nests of other bees, reminiscent of the behavior of cuckoo birds. The name is perhaps best applied to the apid subfamily Nomadinae, but is commonly used in Europe to mean bumblebees Bombus subgenus Psithyrus. Females of cuckoo bees are easy to recognize in almost all cases, as they lack pollen-collecting structures and do not construct their own nests. They often have reduced body hair, abnormally thick and/or heavily sculptured exoskeleton, and saber-like mandibles, although this is not universally true; other less visible changes are also common.
With over 850 species, the genus Nomada is one of the largest genera in the family Apidae, and the largest genus of cuckoo bees. Cuckoo bees are so named because they enter the nests of a host and lay eggs there, stealing resources that the host has already collected. The name "Nomada" is derived from the Greek word nomas, meaning "roaming" or "wandering."
The Crotophaginae are a small subfamily, within the cuckoo family Cuculidae, of four gregarious bird species occurring in the Americas. They were previously classified as a family Crotophagidae.
Habitat selection hypothesis is one of several hypotheses that attempt to explain the mechanisms of brood parasite host selection in cuckoos. Cuckoos are not the only brood parasites, however the behavior is more rare in other groups of birds, including ducks, weavers, and cowbirds.
Horsfield's bronze cuckoo is a small cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. Its size averages 22g and is distinguished by its green and bronze iridescent colouring on its back and incomplete brown barring from neck to tail. Horsfield's bronze cuckoo can be destiguished from other bronze cuckoos by its white eyebrow and brown eye stripe. The Horsfield's bronze cuckoo is common throughout Australia preferring the drier open woodlands away from forested areas.
The red-chested cuckoo is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is a medium-sized bird found in Africa, south of the Sahara. In Afrikaans, it is known as "Piet-my-vrou", after its call.
The pavonine cuckoo is a Neotropical cuckoo with a long graduated tail and a short crest. It is one of three species of Neotropical cuckoo which are known to be brood parasites.
The screaming cowbird is an obligate brood parasite belonging to the family Icteridae and is found in South America. It is also known commonly as the short billed cowbird.
Within the insect order Hymenoptera, the Halictinae are the largest, most diverse, and most recently diverged of the four halictid subfamilies. They comprise over 2400 bee species belonging to the five taxonomic tribes Augochlorini, Thrinchostomini, Caenohalictini, Sphecodini, and Halictini, which some entomologists alternatively organize into the two tribes Augochlorini and Halictini.
Vertebrate maternal behavior is a form of parental care that is specifically given to young animals by their mother in order to ensure the survival of the young. Parental care is a form of altruism, which means that the behaviors involved often require a sacrifice that could put their own survival at risk. This encompasses behaviors that aid in the evolutionary success of the offspring and parental investment, which is a measure of expenditure exerted by the parent in an attempt to provide evolutionary benefits to the offspring. Therefore, it is a measure of the benefits versus costs of engaging in the parental behaviors. Behaviors commonly exhibited by the maternal parent include feeding, either by lactating or gathering food, grooming young, and keeping the young warm. Another important aspect of parental care is whether the care is provided to the offspring by each parent in a relatively equal manner, or whether it is provided predominantly or entirely by one parent. There are several species that exhibit biparental care, where behaviors and/or investment in the offspring is divided equally amongst the parents. This parenting strategy is common in birds. However, even in species who exhibit biparental care, the maternal role is essential since the females are responsible for the incubation and/or delivery of the young.
Brood reduction occurs when the number of nestlings in a birds brood is reduced, usually because there is a limited amount of resources available. It can occur directly via infanticide, or indirectly via competition over resources between siblings. Avian parents often produce more offspring than they can care for, resulting in the death of some of the nestlings. Brood reduction was originally described by David Lack in his brood-reduction hypothesis to explain the existence of hatching asynchrony in many bird species.
