Australian cuckoos and their adaptations for brood parasitism

Abstract

The strategies used by parasitic cuckoos to fool their hosts have intrigued naturalists and ornithologists for centuries. Here I review some of the tricks used by Australian parasitic cuckoos to increase host nest availability, access host nests, and fool their hosts into accepting their eggs and chicks. Some of these strategies are widely used by cuckoo species around the world, but other traits, such as cryptic eggs and mimetic chicks, appear to be largely restricted to the Australasian cuckoos. Generalist cuckoos face greater challenges than specialists if they must fool multiple host species, and this provides a possible explanation for why different species of cuckoos have evolved different strate- gies for host deception.