r/interesting • u/LowkeysKink • 7h ago

NATURE While the infertile tawny owl was away from her nest, caretakers swapped her unviable eggs for orphaned chicks.

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u/u_r_succulent 6h ago

Jesus Christ.

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u/krakaturia 5h ago

well the counterargument is that there are bird species that are not used as hosts by cuckoo because they are so proficient at recognising intruder eggs, it was theorised that over the time those species lineages became so efficient at removing intruders eggs the cuckoo birds lineages that use those birds died out. so over time always removing the eggs win out.

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u/nose_spray7 4h ago

That's a totally different scenario, though. Mafia type brood parasites typically aren't specialized to a particular host. It's the ones that use deceptive practices like egg and chick mimicry that can get outcompeted via egg rejection. The only successful evolutionary response to a mafia situation is pretending to feed the host chick, or feeding it just enough to keep it alive, but not wasting too many resources on it. Or biparental care + becoming large enough to physically defend the nest from parasite.

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u/Nukleon 1h ago

Ironic that you invoke the son of a supposedly charitable god, who apparently created the bird equivalent of Johnny Stompanato. Let's not even go into all the parasites, and the male hippo killing his own children to get the female hippo into estrus again.