When the cuckoo chick hatches, it ejects other eggs or hatchlings to get all the space—and food—for itself. Hungry as a whole brood, the outsize baby devours everything brought by its foster ...

the Australian superb fairy-wren stops feeding the bronze-cuckoo chick and abandons the nest, a strategy that can be outwitted by the right cuckoo call (Nature, 422:157-160, March 13, 2003). Langmore ...

Because of the cuckoo's rapid development cycle, the chick hatches faster than the rest of the clutch, and once out of its egg, it will instinctually push the host's offspring out of the perch.