Provisioning of fledgling conspecifics by males of the brood-parasitic cuckoos Chrysococcyx klaas and C. caprius.

Publication: Wilson Bulletin

Publication Date: 01-MAR-06

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The genus Chrysococcyx comprises 15 species of small, Old World cuckoos (Sibley and Monroe 1990), of which all are thought to be obligate brood parasites (Davies 2000). Klaas's Cuckoo (C. klaas) has a wide distribution in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is known to parasitize a large number of passerine host taxa, often--but not exclusively--species of Sylviidae and Nectarinidae (Irwin 1988). Similarly, the Diederik Cuckoo (C. caprius) breeds throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa and has a broad range of hosts, primarily species of Ploceidae (Irwin 1988).

Over the past century, there have been numerous observations of male Chrysococcyx cuckoos feeding conspecifics that were thought to be fledglings (Moreau 1944, Friedmann 1968, Iversen and Hill 1983, Rowan 1983). In a literature review of provisioning behavior in brood parasites, Lorenzana and Sealy (1998) found 5 records of nestling or fledgling provisioning by Klaas's Cuckoo males and 11 such records for Diederik Cuckoo males; Friedmann (1968) discusses 12 and 15 such records, respectively, including some anecdotal reports. There is apparently only one equivalent report of a female Chrysococcyx cuckoo provisioning fledglings, and in that case, both the female and young were captive birds (Millar 1926, Lorenzana and Sealy 1998). Historically, a number of researchers (e.g., Moreau 1944, Friedmann 1968) considered parental care to be common in African Chrysococcyx cuckoos and believed that the behavior might be a primitive condition associated with...

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