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Article: Our hand in the future: what can be done to avert mass extinction on a scale not seen since the age of the dinosaurs.
- Article from:
- For A Change
- Article date:
- April 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 For a Change. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Last summer I saw an extraordinary sight. A dunnock, a bird about the size of a sparrow, was feeding a young cuckoo which was about eight times as big as itself. European cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other species. Each female cuckoo has evolved to exploit a particular species, often laying eggs that bear a striking resemblance to the foster mother's own. When the cuckoo egg hatches, the fledgling ejects any other eggs and young from the nest and then makes as much noise as a whole brood of normal chicks so that the host parents are stimulated to feed it as much as they would several of their own young. Meanwhile the parent cuckoos are making their way back to a ...