Expert: Julia Booth - 12/8/2010

Question
Sometime ago, I studied the cowbirds and I observed that their offspring did not recognized each other as a species while they lived with their ‘adoptive’ parents. Do you know if there are studies available that show when the cowbirds offspring start to recognize themselves as part of the same species?
Thank you very much,
Denisse


Answer
I have always considered the answer to this question to be a major cop out, scientifically speaking.

As I'm sure you've already deduced, cowbirds do not learn how to be cowbirds from their forest parents. The assumption is that the relevant information is somehow genetically-encoded. The truth is that we don't know how it is that cowbirds can recognize other members of their own species. We only know that they do.

This site has a nice, comprehensive page about cowbird life cycles and nesting behavior:

http://www.sialis.org/cowbirds.htm

I know that wasn't very exciting. Let me know if you need more information,

Julia