Brood parasitism
reproduction strategy used by an organism that relies on others to raise its young
Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's. The strategy involves a form of aggressive mimicry called Kirbyan mimicry.
The evolutionary strategy relieves the parasitic parents from the investment of rearing young. This benefit comes at the cost of provoking an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host as they coevolve: many hosts have developed strong defenses against brood parasitism, such as recognizing and ejecting parasitic eggs, or abandoning parasitized nests and starting over. It is less obvious why most hosts do care for parasite nestlings, given that for example cuckoo chicks differ markedly from host chicks in size and appearance. One explanation, the mafia hypothesis, proposes that parasitic adults retaliate by destroying host nests where rejection has occurred; there is experimental evidence to support this. Intraspecific brood parasitism also occurs, as in many duck species.
Evolutionary strategy
Brood parasitism is an evolutionary strategy that relieves the parasitic parents from the investment of rearing young or building nests for the young by getting the host to raise their young for them.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Brood parasitism” is reproduction strategy used by an organism that relies on others to raise its young. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Brood, parasitism and reproduction, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q647144. The Library of Congress control number is sh96005570. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brood parasitism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.