Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Common cuckoos aren’t known for being model parents. Rather than ...

Common cuckoos and oriental cuckoos in eastern Russia appear to be expanding their breeding range into western Alaska, where songbirds are naive to the cuckoos' wily ways, researchers report. A new ...

Hosts of brood parasites defend their nests against parasitism by aggression and subsequently, if parasitized, by rejection of the parasite egg or nestling. Cuckoos have evolved plumage mimicry with ...

Brood parasites are some of the bird kingdom’s most notorious sneaks. They don’t rear their own young but instead pawn the task of child care off onto other species without their knowledge. Instead of ...

The common cuckoo deploys a wide range of tricks to deceive smaller birds into raising cuckoo chicks instead of their own progeny. This is a form of parasitism: The brood parasite hijacks the parental ...

For two million years African cuckoo finches have been tricking other birds into raising their young by mimicking the colour of their eggs, but new research suggests the tables may be turning in this ...