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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on May 7, 2007
Behavioral Ecology 2007 18(4):792-799; doi:10.1093/beheco/arm025
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

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Egg puncturing by the brood parasitic Greater Honeyguide and potential host counteradaptations

Claire N. Spottiswoodea,b and John F.R. Colebrook-Robjentc

a Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK b DST/NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa c Musumanene Farm, PO Box 630303, Choma, Zambia

Address correspondence to C.N. Spottiswoode. E-mail: cns26@cam.ac.uk.

Received 19 July 2006; revised 17 February 2007; accepted 5 March 2007.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   INTRODUCTION
 
Nestlings of the brood parasitic Greater Honeyguide Indicator indicator (Piciformes, Indicatoridae) are typically raised alone, thus monopolizing the parental care of their mainly Coraciiform and Upupiform hosts. Two behaviors contribute to this situation: first, the laying female honeyguide usually punctures some or all of the host eggs, presumably using either her bill or her claws (Friedmann 1955Go). So far as is definitely known within the Indicatoridae, egg puncturing is unique to the Greater Honeyguide, although similar behavior appears to have independently evolved at least twice in other brood parasitic lineages, in the Great Spotted Cuckoos Clamator glandarius (Soler 1990Go; Soler et al. 1997Go) and in the cowbirds Molothrus spp. (Icteridae) (e.g., Hoy and Ottow 1964Go; Carter 1986Go; Massoni and Reboreda 1999Go). Second, the honeyguide hatchling is equipped with a sharp hook on the tip of its bill, with which it kills any host hatchlings . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   METHODS
 
Study site and species
Egg characteristics
Statistical analyses

   RESULTS
 
Measurement accuracy and incidence of puncturing
Is egg puncturing associated with host embryo death?
Is rate of egg puncturing related to host egg morphology?
Do hosts desert excessively punctured clutches?
Is host egg morphology related to the probability of surviving honeyguide parasitism?
Do honeyguides puncture more when laying late?
Do honeyguides puncture more when hosts are large bodied?
Have host species evolved thicker eggshells than nonhosts?

   DISCUSSION
 

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