Cooting ugly?
The close up of the coot hatchling I watched yesterday...
Most baby birds, cute though they may be, are not exactly colorful. This makes good evolutionary sense: Newly-hatched birds, unable to fly, make easy meals for predators. They thus must blend into their surroundings.
Not so the coot. Adult coots are fairly drab birds. But their babies - They look like they were designed by a deranged hairstyles artist. Research published in has shown that female coots favor babies with brighter plumes. When biologists removed plumes from chicks, the mothers showed a preference for the more colorful offspring. Being a colorful baby coot may draw attention from a fox, but it also means more food and better care, thus increasing chances of survival.
Adult coots compensate for their cartoonish young by being fierce defenders of their nests. Many predatory species find that attacking coots not worth the trouble. Curiously, adult coots are somewhat unwieldy fliers, so they’re easy prey for many raptors, including bald eagles. According to researchers from the University of California-Santa Cruz, coots can count their eggs and reject those laid by other coots. They also use hatching order to help differentiate between their own chicks and parasites (chicks that hatch first are more likely to be their offspring).
Chicks that are identified as “intruders” are rejected : Researchers report adults chasing them away from the nest, violently pecking them and even forcing them underwater to drown them. Sometimes, though, adult coots misidentify their own young as parasites and raise the actual parasites as their own. It obviously happens often enough for this habit to continue.
Cooting ugly?
The close up of the coot hatchling I watched yesterday...
Most baby birds, cute though they may be, are not exactly colorful. This makes good evolutionary sense: Newly-hatched birds, unable to fly, make easy meals for predators. They thus must blend into their surroundings.
Not so the coot. Adult coots are fairly drab birds. But their babies - They look like they were designed by a deranged hairstyles artist. Research published in has shown that female coots favor babies with brighter plumes. When biologists removed plumes from chicks, the mothers showed a preference for the more colorful offspring. Being a colorful baby coot may draw attention from a fox, but it also means more food and better care, thus increasing chances of survival.
Adult coots compensate for their cartoonish young by being fierce defenders of their nests. Many predatory species find that attacking coots not worth the trouble. Curiously, adult coots are somewhat unwieldy fliers, so they’re easy prey for many raptors, including bald eagles. According to researchers from the University of California-Santa Cruz, coots can count their eggs and reject those laid by other coots. They also use hatching order to help differentiate between their own chicks and parasites (chicks that hatch first are more likely to be their offspring).
Chicks that are identified as “intruders” are rejected : Researchers report adults chasing them away from the nest, violently pecking them and even forcing them underwater to drown them. Sometimes, though, adult coots misidentify their own young as parasites and raise the actual parasites as their own. It obviously happens often enough for this habit to continue.