Page 167 - Atlas Of The World's Strangest Animals

CUCKOO 167

is Eurasian, spending its summers in Europe and Asia and
Cuckoo habitats
winters in Africa. In Britain, the arrival of the cuckoo is
always welcomed as a sign that spring is on the way:
readers of the The Times newspaper have been known to
write in to report hearing the first characteristic ‘cuk-oo’
call, after which the bird is named.
In these temperate zones, cuckoos are primarily
insectivores and will eat almost any insect.Their curved
bills make short work of everything from spiders to
beetles, but they seem to have a real taste for the unusual.
The common cuckoo feeds on hairy, toxic caterpillars such
as those of the cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae), which most
birds are careful to avoid.
Many caterpillar species are unpalatable due to the fact
that their bodies absorb bitter-tasting alkalis from the
plants they eat.At best, this makes them taste extremely
unpleasant.At worst, it makes them poisonous. Many also
have urticating (barbed) hairs, which embed themselves in
the skin, eyes and soft parts of predators, or anyone else
unlucky enough to stumble across them. Urtica is Latin for
nettle and eating a hairy caterpillar is like munching down
a bunch of stinging nettles!
cuckoo chicks look nothing like their own offspring, Cuckoos, though, have developed a cunning technique
instinct compels the parents to continue feeding the for handling such tricky food.They bite off the heads of
impostors until they’re big enough to fledge. the caterpillars and then, before swallowing them, they
shake them, presumably to expel their toxic innards.After
Curious cuisine this, it’s a simple matter to swallow the remains – hair and
Cuckoos come can be found in both temperate and all. Cuckoos periodically shed their stomach lining,
tropical regions. Many live in the rainforests of Australia, depositing it as a neat pellet, which safely removes all of
South America,Asia and Africa, but the common cuckoo those irritating hairs.

Comparisons

There’s no doubt that common cuckoos have a bad reputation when of reproducing. Some build nests and raise their own young while
it comes to their parenting techniques, but only around 40 per cent of others, like the black-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus erythropthalmus), lay eggs
all cuckoos are brood parasites. Other species have less dramatic ways in other birds’ nests only when food is plentiful.

Common cuckoo Black-billed cuckoo

(c) 2011 Marshall Cavendish. All Rights Reserved.