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Vermilion Flycatcher

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Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus Obscurus), Crooked Tree

©Aurore Shirley

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Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus obscurus)

"Non-binary icon!" (In reference to Roswell from The Adventure Zone)

The topic of brood parasitism is usually brought up with birds such as cowbirds and cuckoos, who's entire mating strategy revolves around parasitizing other birds nets. There is also a type called intra-specific brood parasitism, where birds only lay their eggs in the nests of other birds within their species. Surprisingly, the Vermilion Flycatcher has been shown to have between 9-20% of total offspring raised being the result of brood parasitism! That's a ridiculous amount! The wikipedia article goes into further detail of a 2008 paper, explaining why both females and males seem to be so comfortable with this system:

Females often spend long times away from the nest, which enables others to lay eggs in their nests while absent. This may simply be a form of parasitism, wherein the pair whose nest is being parasitized gains no benefit. But for promiscuous birds, this may provide some genetic fitness. For a male mating with many females, and those females laying many of their eggs outside of their nest, this increases the odds that a promiscuous male's offspring are laid in his nest. This allows the male to outsource the energy-intensive process of egg-laying away from his mate and allows a female to outsource the process of raising her chick. This is supported by examples of males letting females parasitize their nests in exchange for copulation.

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