How Egg Patterning Evolves to Distinguish Cuckoo Eggs (IMAGE)

University of Cambridge

How Egg Patterning Evolves to Distinguish Cuckoo Eggs

Caption

The interactions between the Common Cuckoo and its hosts (like the Reed Warbler shown on the left, caring for a much larger cuckoo chick) provide a classic case of coevolution. To trick their hosts into accepting foreign eggs, cuckoos have evolved egg mimicry. Using a new pattern recognition tool, NATUREPATTERNMATCH, researchers show that host birds have evolved individual egg pattern signatures, which allow them to distinguish their own eggs from those of a cuckoo cheat. NATUREPATTERNMATCH extracts visual features, here represented by magenta vectors (centre). Three eggs each (represented in different rows) laid by three different Great Reed Warblers are shown here (right).

Credit

David Kjaer (left) and Mary Caswell Stoddard/Natural History Museum, UK (centre, right)

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