Egg colour mimicry in the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus as revealed by modelling host retinal function.

ABSTRACT: Some parasite cuckoo species lay eggs that, to the human eye, appear to mimic the appearance of the eggs of their favourite hosts, which hinders discrimination and removal of their eggs by host species. Hitherto, perception of cuckoo-host egg mimicry has been estimated based on human vision or spectrophotometry, which does not account for what the receivers' eye (i.e. hosts) actually discriminates. Using a discrimination model approach that reproduces host retinal functioning, and museum egg collections collected in the south of Finland, where at least six different races of the European cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) coexist, I first assess whether the colour design of cuckoo eggs of different races maximizes matching for two favourite avian hosts, viz. the redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) an

SUBMITTER: Aviles JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2603233 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature