2023-07-31 18:40:53
By Soline Roy
Posted 4 hours ago, Updated 4 hours ago
Selection of broods of drongos parasitized by African cuckoos. In each photo, one of the eggs is that of the cuckoo. Guess which one… Or go to the end of this article for the answer! Claire Spottiswoode.
This small African passerine would be able to detect up to 94% of cuckoo eggs fraudulently deposited in its nest.
It is an African sparrow with a black and shiny coat, which hides a real talent for trickery under its innocent appearance: the drongo, alias Like Dicrurusknows how to perfectly imitate the alarm calls of other species (birds and small mammals), to scare them away and enjoy their food…
But to this dark feat revealed in 2014 by a team from the universities of Cape Town (South Africa) and Cambridge (United Kingdom) is added another, we now tell in Proceedings of the Royal Society B other researchers from the same zoological laboratories: the drongo cheats, but it does not allow itself to be cheated. And the cuckoo that tries to slip its eggs into the sparrow’s nest runs the risk of seeing its offspring end up in an omelet…
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However, it is not for lack of trying: the African cuckoo (cuckoo throat) has become an expert in the art of imitating the eggs of the drongo, adorned with a varying coat « from white to reddish brown » who stays « immaculate » or present…
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#drongo #crooked #bird #cheated