{"id":168458,"date":"2015-02-10T12:33:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T12:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/02\/10\/azzandra-cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope\/"},"modified":"2018-09-10T21:39:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T21:39:38","slug":"azzandra-cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/02\/10\/azzandra-cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-168458 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/02\/10\/azzandra-cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope\/attachment\/168459\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/tumblr_niai8nqD8f1tg8cvmo1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/tumblr_niai8nqD8f1tg8cvmo1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/tumblr_niai8nqD8f1tg8cvmo1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/azzandra.tumblr.com\/post\/110531938551\/cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope-common\" target=\"_blank\">azzandra<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/cattletyrants.tumblr.com\/post\/108487527533\/blurds-avianeurope-common-cuckoo-cuculus\" target=\"_blank\">cattletyrants<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/blurds.tumblr.com\/post\/108423336704\/avianeurope-common-cuckoo-cuculus-canorus-by\" target=\"_blank\">blurds<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/avianeurope.tumblr.com\/post\/108377779461\/common-cuckoo-cuculus-canorus-by-kee-liu\" target=\"_blank\">avianeurope<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><b>Common Cuckoo<\/b> (<i>Cuculus canorus<\/i>) \u00bbby <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96114095@N02\/14999125086\" target=\"_blank\">Kee Liu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019m seeing some confusion about this one in the reblogs, and it is for my money one of the most interesting things to know about birds, so:<\/p>\n<p>The big guy in this picture is the cuckoo &#8211; a young cuckoo. \u00a0The little one is the momma bird, who is feeding the baby, even though the baby is now like five times as big as she is. \u00a0That\u2019s because the cuckoo is a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brood_parasite\" target=\"_blank\">brood parasite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. \u00a0If the hosts notice the cuckoo egg, they will try to get rid of it &#8211; if they don\u2019t, though, and the cuckoo chick hatches, they will raise it as their own, even though the first thing it does when it hatches is to murder all of their other children.<\/p>\n<p>The question with this is always: why, at that point, do the host birds raise the cuckoo chick? \u00a0 It\u2019s way too hungry, it\u2019s way too aggressive, it hangs around way longer than a normal chick would, and it\u2019s\u00a0<i>huge<\/i>, for god\u2019s sake. \u00a0 It\u2019s obviously not theirs. There are a couple of theories. One is that the begging call a baby cuckoo makes sounds like an\u00a0entire nest\u00a0of normal chicks, and the parents are programmed to feed whatever makes that noise. \u00a0 I got some doubts about behavior models that are that deterministic, though. \u00a0I like to think it\u2019s some avian variation on the sunk cost fallacy &#8211; the parents put all these resources into making this nest and laying this clutch, and by god they\u2019re going to get a baby out of it, even if it\u2019s a giant monster baby.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There is absolutely zero science behind this but my impression has always been that the parasitized parents, upon raising a gargantuan monster child, are basically just thrilled to pieces, like, \u201cfuck yeah my huge Gundam kid can beat up your honor student\u201d and \u201cgaze upon my feathered monster truck pride and joy and despair\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Or maybe it\u2019s just because they live in fear of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/plants-and-animals\/cuckoos-use-mafia-tactics-and-they-work\" target=\"_blank\">cuckoo mafia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div>In 1979 Evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahavi of Tel Aviv University proposed what he called the <a href=\"http:\/\/rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/205\/1161\/489.short\" target=\"_blank\">mafia hypothesis<\/a>. He suggested that if hosts removed parasitical eggs from their nests the cuckoos would respond by coming back and destroying all the other eggs as well. Birds living in fear of such retribution would put up with a having to feed an extra mouth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>azzandra: cattletyrants: blurds: avianeurope: Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) \u00bbby Kee Liu I\u2019m seeing some confusion about this one in the reblogs, and it is for my money one of the most interesting things to know about birds, so: The big guy in this picture is the cuckoo &#8211; a young cuckoo. \u00a0The little one is &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/02\/10\/azzandra-cattletyrants-blurds-avianeurope\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[572,237,18619,1463,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168460,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168458\/revisions\/168460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}