{"id":31044,"date":"2025-07-03T17:45:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T17:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31044"},"modified":"2025-07-03T18:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:30:12","slug":"how-parasitic-cowbirds-with-no-parents-learns-what-species-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31044","title":{"rendered":"How Parasitic Cowbirds With No Parents Learns What Species They Are"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cowbird mothers abandon their eggs in the nests of other bird species, but the chicks somehow manage to find their flock and learn what they really are.<\/p>\n

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In P.D. Eastman\u2019s classic picture book \u201cAre You My Mother?\u201d<\/a> a baby bird hatches alone and goes on a quest. It asks a cow, a dog, and even an excavator whether they might be its mother. Finally, the chick and its true mom reunite.<\/p>\n

In nature, cowbirds also hatch without their parents present. Cowbird mothers leave their eggs behind in the nests of different species. Yet to grow up safely, the birds must join other cowbirds in flocks. They somehow need to learn what species they belong to.<\/p>\n

Earlier research hinted that brown-headed cowbird chicks might reconnect with their parents. But a paper published Thursday<\/a> in the journal Animal Behaviour found no evidence of a happy reunion. Instead, cowbird chicks learned who they were by hanging out with unrelated adult females.<\/p>\n

Brown-headed cowbirds are what scientists call brood parasites. That means parents don\u2019t raise their own young. Mothers sneakily lay eggs in other birds\u2019 nests, and oblivious host parents rear the young brood parasite alongside their own offspring. (Chicks of the common cuckoo, another brood parasite, kill their foster siblings by shoving them over the side of the nest.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Unlike most birds, a young brood parasite doesn\u2019t get attached to its host parents. You can see this if you rear cowbirds by hand, said Mark Hauber, a comparative psychologist at CUNY Graduate Center in New York: \u201cThey start hating you at some point.\u201d If a cowbird imprinted on a family of yellow warblers, say, and sought out warblers\u2019 company as an adult, it would never find a mate and reproduce.<\/p>\n

Beyond mating, \u201cThere\u2019s tons of different benefits to knowing what kind of bird you are,\u201d said Mac Chamberlain, an ornithologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who works with Dr. Hauber. For example, cowbirds flock together, roost together and learn from each other where to find food.<\/p>\n

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Cowbird mothers abandon their eggs in the nests of other bird species, but the chicks somehow manage to find their flock and learn what they really are.In P.D. Eastman\u2019s classic picture book \u201cAre You My Mother?\u201d a baby bird hatches alone and goes on a quest. It asks a cow, a dog, and even an excavator whether they might be its mother. Finally, the chick and its true mom reunite.In nature, cowbirds also hatch without their parents present. Cowbird mothers leave their eggs behind in the nests of different species. Yet to grow up safely, the birds must join other cowbirds in flocks. They somehow need to learn what species they belong to.Earlier research hinted that brown-headed cowbird chicks might reconnect with their parents. But a paper published Thursday in the journal Animal Behaviour found no evidence of a happy reunion. Instead, cowbird chicks learned who they were by hanging out with unrelated adult females.Brown-headed cowbirds are what scientists call brood parasites. That means parents don\u2019t raise their own young. Mothers sneakily lay eggs in other birds\u2019 nests, and oblivious host parents rear the young brood parasite alongside their own offspring. (Chicks of the common cuckoo, another brood parasite, kill their foster siblings by shoving them over the side of the nest.)Unlike most birds, a young brood parasite doesn\u2019t get attached to its host parents. You can see this if you rear cowbirds by hand, said Mark Hauber, a comparative psychologist at CUNY Graduate Center in New York: \u201cThey start hating you at some point.\u201d If a cowbird imprinted on a family of yellow warblers, say, and sought out warblers\u2019 company as an adult, it would never find a mate and reproduce.Beyond mating, \u201cThere\u2019s tons of different benefits to knowing what kind of bird you are,\u201d said Mac Chamberlain, an ornithologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who works with Dr. Hauber. For example, cowbirds flock together, roost together and learn from each other where to find food.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31046,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31047,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31044\/revisions\/31047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}