this is a perfect mismatch with one species feeding another totally non-related species.
This parasitic cuckoo fledgling is tended by its host parent a common Iora (right). This baby looks really scary with a mouth big enough to swallow its parent whole.
The pathetic host parent is completely oblivious of what is going on and is totally committed to its parental duties regardless of its baby’s outlook. The very baby the Iora has help to raise has a dark secret that nature is hiding from them. This big fat baby is also the murderer of its own offspring. Sometime in the early stages of the nesting cycle, the cuckoo chick is genetically programed to destroy all the original Iora eggs/chicks by pushing them out of the nest without the real parent’s knowledge. Being the planned sole survivor, he will continue to receive all the food and care that he needs to grow up fast and strong Evolution has even streamlined the process such that the cuckoo does not even need to resemble the host species in order to deceive them.
Interestingly, the host parent will never know the terrible truth and continue to tend to the alien chick even though it does not look like its own kind. Little do they know that they have brought up a monster.
That seem cruel but nature invariably has a purpose to everything which we have yet to find out.
Meanwhile all we can do is to let this weird behaviour continue to fascinate us until nature decide to give up its secrets.
Notice that the cuckoo tend to raise one of its wings while being fed. Perhaps to emit some kind of body odour to mesmerise and retain the feeding mode of its foster parent 🙂
@jurong eco garden, sg
There is even a darker secret. Its remain undiscovered until now. A series of shocking events have unfolded which reveal something totally unexpected and never being observed in the natural world since the dinosaur time. Observed and recorder for the very first time by eddylee. Read on…
Black and Crimson Oriole feeding Long-legged Cuckoo
