Yang Hua fell to the bottom of the rules and cried, smelling the dragon marking the Five Streams. ——Tang Li Bai, "Wen Wang Changling Left Migration Dragon Biao Yao Has This Mail"
In the hearts of many ancient literati inkers, the cuckoo is the soul of Du Yu, the king of Shu, and its cry is very poignant and sad, just like the hope of returning to the hometown, so it also has the meaning of "zi gui". Therefore, it is often used to refer to some complex character emotions.
Cuckoos should not be too unfamiliar, or we are more accustomed to calling them "cuckoos". For birds, most of them nest in the forest, which is a very beneficial bird to the forest; but the reason why the cuckoo bird is famous, in addition to the ancient literati's poetry to borrow its meaning, there is also a point that is known as the "parasite" they are best at.
What is "parasitism"? That is, they will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and let other birds raise offspring for them. This is undoubtedly a very easy thing for cuckoo birds, only need to lay eggs, and the follow-up maintenance work is completely irresponsible.
But imagine how birds react when they find out that their long-held cubs are actually the chicks of a cuckoo.
Like most birds, cuckoos use insects as their main food source.
But there are some differences, such as insectoids like pine caterpillars and poisonous moths, which birds generally do not eat. Because these foods carry a certain degree of toxicity, for silkworm farmers, contact with the poisonous hair of the insect is very easy to cause black spot disease; and after human contact, it will generally cause symptoms of dermatitis or lymphatic inflammation.
Such insects often produce larvae on the trunk or leaves, and when the larvae hatch, they will gather in groups on the leaves to eat leaf flesh directly; their main parasitic plants are willows, poplars, birches, hazelnuts, beech, etc., the diet is very messy, and the reproduction is quite large, easy to cause insect infestation.
However, for cuckoo birds, poisonous moths are a rare delicacy. Because when they eat such insects, they will constantly beat them on the branches, or repeatedly scrape off the hair and eat only the internal tissues; and the bigger reason is that the cuckoo bird has a "sac", which can be regenerated, and when the toxicity of the vesicle accumulates to a certain extent, it will fall off and form a ball, which is spit out by the cuckoo bird itself (also known as "chicken gold"), which can always maintain the health of the intestine.
Therefore, for the forest, the cuckoo is also a very famous beneficial bird, also known as the "forest guardian".
At first glance, it seems that the cuckoo bird is quite good, but why doesn't many people think that the cuckoo bird is very annoying? This has a lot to do with the way cuckoo birds reproduce.
In a sense, the breeding status of the cuckoo bird is completely overstated by the four words "dove occupying the magpie's nest". Because in this species of cuckoo, basically one-third of the population will choose to raise their young birds in a parasitic way, which is called "nest parasitism".
Well. "Foster care", as the name suggests, is to lay your eggs in the nests of other birds and let other birds feed their cubs instead of them, just like the "nursing mother" referred to by human society.
The bird is not the only bird that will give its cubs to other birds to take care of, there are more than 80 kinds of birds in nature that have the phenomenon of "nest parasitism", but the cuckoo bird is the most typical, because they can parasitize their eggs in the nests of more than 120 other birds, and they are not picky about the differences in species and body size.
In general, to choose a parasitic large cuckoo, in order to maximize their eggs, the success rate of hatching by other birds, will begin to look for birds similar to their own incubation period and brooding period during the breeding period, and then examine whether their feeding and egg color are similar, and finally determine their own family of birds that can parasitize, and quickly lay eggs in their nests before they hatch.
This type of cuckoo generally does not make its own nest, nor does it incubate eggs, often places its cubs in the nests of other birds, and each time it goes to a nest, it will only lay one egg, and sometimes it will remove one of the eggs from the parasitic nest, or directly push out of the nest, and the most likely result is to crash, so as not to be found abnormal and suspicious.
Under the condition that the cuckoo is equivalent to a net-casting parasitic selection, it is often the case that when some smaller birds are encountered, when the cuckoo young birds grow to a relatively large size, they will find that they are much larger than the female birds that feed them, and they look like they have the taste of "nibbling on the old".
What is even more unacceptable is that the cuckoo cubs will also have certain inferiority after breaking out of their shells.
When other birds go out to feed, they will push other eggs in the nest that have not yet hatched, and even the young birds that have broken out of the shell, to the outside of the nest, let them fend for themselves, and then monopolize the support of the parasitic "mother" alone.
Of course, there are also hosts who will find that the cuckoo bird does not seem to be their own child on the way to growing up. But at this time, the eggs of birds that hatched or did not hatch at the same time are no longer there, and without a comparative reference, it is impossible to determine 100% whether he is his own child.
Or it could be explained this way: the essential difference between humans and animals is that the human brain thinks. Therefore, in this nest, the cuckoo bird, the parasite, is not a good person, they seem to be symbiotic in the same nest, in fact, it is a real competition, and this kind of competition is related to each other's lives.
The laws of nature itself have a certain contradiction. For rhododendrons, for example, they have great benefits for the forest, and the reduction of insect pests makes the forest more healthy and prosperous; however, it is a disaster for other parasitic bird families, because they often face their own generation of cubs may be "wiped out" by a parasitic cuckoo bird.
Fortunately, not all cuckoo birds will have parasitism, and some selected host birds will recognize which egg is not their own at the beginning of hatching and then push it outside the nest. Therefore, the parasitic plan of the cuckoo bird is not a 100% chance of success.
After reading the above content, I wonder if your feelings about the creature "sub-rule" have changed?