BLACK TORDO / CUCOO

BLACK TORDO / CUCOO

Publicado en: Apr 03, 2020

Some parasitic relationships have a benefit to the host. For example, the BLACK TORDO is a parasite that never builds nests, never incubates eggs, and never feeds its chicks.

More specifically the black thrush is a NEST PARASITE. This bird removes an egg from another bird's nest when it is missing and replaces it with one of its own. The host normally rears the thrush chick, but some species recognize the thrush egg and remove it from the nest. In most cases, the thrush hatches and pushes its mates out of the nest, or eats most of the food in such a way that the other chicks starve to death.

Does this relationship seem very unhelpful to the host? Well, in some areas there are large populations of flies, the larvae of which feed on the meat of the chicks. The survival rate is higher in nests that have young thrushes because they eat the larvae of the flies. Parasitic relationships clearly benefit the parasite more than the host, but we cannot say that in all cases the relationship is negative for the latter. Parasitism is one of the ways that species interact in a community. They also interact by competing with other species for limited resources.

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