For the care and feeding of its offspring, the common cuckoo outsources ... one of the eggs that’s been laid there and lays one of her own—a behavior known as brood parasitism.

In fact, social monogamy is extremely common in birds and somewhat common in mammals, while sexual monogamy is vanishingly ...

incubating eggs, and feeding young. For hosts of brood parasitic birds, the costs of parasitism range from diminished nestling growth rate, due to competition with larger and more competitive ...

The Levaillant's cuckoo is infamous for its brood parasitism (a sneaky survival ... that involves laying its eggs in the nests of other bird species. This cunning behaviour allows the cuckoo ...

Eggshells are the second largest collection represented in ornithology after bird skins and this is one of the most important ... high variation in egg colour and pattern as a defence to brood ...

The term comes from the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. See Easter Egg. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction requires permission.