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Cowbird

Genus of birds

Summary

Genus of birds

M. oryzivorus
M. bonariensis
M. aeneus
M. armenti
M. ater

Cowbirds are birds belonging to the genus Molothrus in the family Icteridae. They are of New World origin, but some species not native to North America are invasive there, and are obligate brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species.

The genus was introduced by English naturalist William Swainson in 1832 with the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek grc, meaning "struggle" or "battle", with grc, meaning "to sire" or "to impregnate". The English name "cowbird", first recorded in 1839, refers to this species often being seen near cattle.

Species

The genus contains six species:

One extinct species, Molothrus resinosus, is known from fossil remains recovered from the Talara Tar Seeps of northwestern Peru, and likely went extinct during the late Quaternary. It may have been a close associate of Pleistocene megafauna communities, and may have gone extinct following their collapse in populations. The convex-billed cowbird (Pandanaris convexa) is another extinct species that likely co-evolved with the megafauna, though it is placed in its own genus.

The nonparasitic baywings were formerly placed in this genus; they are now classified as Agelaioides.

Behavior

Cowbirds eat mostly insects and seeds. Some species follow ungulates to catch insects stirred up by the larger animals' grazing.

Cowbirds reproduce by laying their eggs in other birds' nests. Female cowbirds observe a potential host bird laying its eggs, and when the nest is left momentarily unattended, the cowbird lays its own egg in it. The female cowbird may continue to observe this nest after laying eggs. Some bird species have evolved the ability to detect such parasitic eggs, and may reject them by pushing them out of their nests, but female cowbirds have been observed to attack and destroy the remaining eggs of such birds in retaliation, as suggested by the Mafia hypothesis.

References

. ["Icteridae"](https://www.aviansystematics.org/4th-edition-checklist?viewfamilies=199). *The Trust for Avian Systematics*.
(1831). "Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America". J. Murray.
(1968). "Check-list of Birds of the World". Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
{{Cite OED. Cowbird
(July 2020). "IOC World Bird List (v 10.2)".
(July 2020). "New species of troupial (''Icterus'') and cowbird (''Molothrus'') from ice-age Peru". The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
Jeffrey P. Hoover. (13 March 2007). "Retaliatory mafia behavior by a parasitic cowbird favors host acceptance of parasitic eggs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

brood-parasites cowbirds birds-of-north-america bird-genera taxa-named-by-william-swainson

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