Natural selection is driving birds that are parasitized by common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) to lay clutches of more uniformly patterned eggs, researchers have found.
Working around the village of Apaj near Kiskunság National Park in Hungary, Csaba Moskát of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and his co-workers painted different numbers of specks onto the first three eggs laid in ten great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus, pictured) nests. They then painted the fourth eggs to arrive in those nests and in 21 others to look like parasitic eggs.
Egg uniformity foils cuckoos, the warblers' behaviour revealed. Warblers with eggs manipulated to be more different from one another tolerated the fake parasitic egg 40% of the time; that figure was just 5% for the 21 control nests.
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Evolutionary biology: Commonality and cuckoos. Nature 454, 1032 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/4541032c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4541032c
