For the first time, scientists have found a bird species–Australia’s superb fairy-wren–that can spot a murderer. The killers are chicks of a particularly aggressive cuckoo species. The crime begins ...

Spot the impostor: A cuckoo finch chick (left) and a tawny-flanked prinia chick (right) open their beaks for a meal. Photo by Claire Spottiswoode Few examples of parasites in nature are as infamous as ...

If you come across a young cuckoo in a bird’s nest this summer, you’ll be witness to one of the most bizarre sights in nature. Cuckoo chicks are interlopers in the nests of other species, and they can ...

The great spotted cuckoo is a parasitic bird that plops its eggs in nests of other birds, so others can care for its chicks. Those chicks might aid the caretaker bird by helping to repel predators.

A parasitic cuckoo chick foisted upon other birds can turn out to be luck in disguise, saving the nest with a disgusting defense. About 1 percent of bird species, including cuckoos, outsource their ...

It’s hard to get inside another human’s head – let alone a member of a different species – but that’s where physics and computer models help. Liz Kalaugher reports how researchers are visualizing what ...

It's not always easy spotting the cuckoo in the nest. But if you don't, you pay a high price raising someone else's chick. How hosts distinguish impostor eggs from their own has long puzzled ...

Using field experiments in Africa and a new computer model that gives them a bird's-eye view of the world, scientists have discovered how a bird decides whether or not a cuckoo has laid an egg in its ...