ArticleBiology letters2012
A stab in the dark: chick killing by brood parasitic honeyguides.
Article in Biology letters, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 81 citations in OpenAlex.
- The ecological and developmental foundations of brood parasitism in a catfish.Nature communications · 2026Article
- To Bees or Not to Bees: Greater Honeyguides Sometimes Guide Humans to Animals Other Than Bees, but Likely Not as Punishment.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Highly virulent avian brood-parasitic species show elevated embryonic metabolic rates at specific incubation stages compared to less virulent and non-parasitic species.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Nest architecture influences host use by avian brood parasites and is shaped by coevolutionary dynamics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Niche construction through a Goldilocks principle maximizes fitness for a nest-sharing brood parasite.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Embryo movement is more frequent in avian brood parasites than birds with parental reproductive strategies.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Common cuckoo females remove more conspicuous eggs during parasitism.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- From micro- to macroevolution: brood parasitism as a driver of phenotypic diversity in birds.Current zoology · 2020Article
- Early life-history features associated with brood parasitism in the cuckoo catfish, Synodontis multipunctatus (Siluriformes: Mochokidae).Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Convergent evolution of reduced eggshell conductance in avian brood parasites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Rearing a virulent common cuckoo is not extra costly for its only cavity-nesting host.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Come on baby, let's do the twist: the kinematics of killing in loggerhead shrikes.Biology letters · 2018Article
- Success of cuckoo catfish brood parasitism reflects coevolutionary history and individual experience of their cichlid hosts.Science advances · 2018Article
- The sight of an adult brood parasite near the nest is an insufficient cue for a honeyguide host to reject foreign eggs.The Ibis · 2015Article
- A brood parasite selects for its own egg traits.Biology letters · 2013Article
- Host-parasite coevolution beyond the nestling stage? Mimicry of host fledglings by the specialist screaming cowbird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2012Article
- Article
- Ladies and gentes: maternally inherited DNA and ancient honeyguide host races.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2011Article
- Ancient host specificity within a single species of brood parasitic bird.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2011Article
- Low incidence of cannibalism among brood parasitic cuckoo catfish embryos.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The most virulent avian brood parasites obligately kill host young soon after hatching, thus ensuring their monopoly of host parental care. While the host eviction behaviour of cuckoos (Cuculidae) is well documented, the host killing behaviour of honeyguide (Indicatoridae) chicks has been witnessed only once, 60 years ago, and never in situ in host nests. Here, we report from the Afrotropical greater honeyguide the first detailed observations of honeyguides killing host chicks with their specially adapted bill hooks, based on repeated video recordings (available in the electronic supplementary material). Adult greater honeyguides puncture host eggs when they lay their own, but in about half of host nests at least one host egg survived, precipitating chick killing by the honeyguide hatchling. Hosts always hatched after honeyguide chicks, and were killed within hours. Despite being blind and in total darkness, honeyguides attacked host young with sustained biting, grasping and shaking motions. Attack time of 1-5 min was sufficient to cause host death, which took from 9 min to over 7 h from first attack. Honeyguides also bit unhatched eggs and human hands, but only rarely bit the host parents feeding them.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.