An analysis of more than 2,000 species suggests eye size may determine which birds are fooled by imposter eggs. In a new study, scientists suggest brood parasites, those that lay their eggs in other species’ nests, are targeting birds whose eyesight isn’t very keen.
Brood parasitism has evolved independently seven times in various bird families that include cuckoos, songbirds, ducks, and honeyguides. In some species, the parasitic chick hatches first and pushes the host bird’s eggs out of the nest, or even. Other times, the unwitting hosts are burdened with extra chicks to incubate and feed alongside their own offspring.
To find out, he and Ausprey drew upon a database of eyeball measurements taken from museum specimens. They examined 750 host birds such as American robins, 42 brood parasites such as common cuckoos, and 1,985 other species whose nests aren’t parasitized, such as house sparrows. Hauber and Ausprey saw that host birds had smaller eyes, both overall and relative to their body size, than brood parasites. Host birds also tended to have smaller eyes than species that didn’t fall victim to parasites. “It makes sense for the parasite to go after birds that just naturally have a worse ability to detect odd-looking objects in the nest,” Hauber says.
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