ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Early life-history features associated with brood parasitism in the cuckoo catfish, Synodontis multipunctatus (Siluriformes: Mochokidae).
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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8 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- The ecological and developmental foundations of brood parasitism in a catfish.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Mixed Parentage Broods Indicate Group Spawning in the Brood Parasitic Cuckoo Catfish.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Parasitic fish embryos do a "front-flip" on the yolk to resist expulsion from the host.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Alloparental care in glassfrogs: males care for unrelated clutches only when associated with their own.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Parasitic cuckoo catfish exploit parental responses to stray offspring.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: a call for integration.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Defences against brood parasites from a social immunity perspective.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Low incidence of cannibalism among brood parasitic cuckoo catfish embryos.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The cuckoo catfish, Synodontis multipunctatus, is the only known obligate brood parasite among fishes, exploiting the parental care of mouthbrooding cichlids endemic to Lake Tanganyika. Comparisons of this system to brood parasitism in birds may reveal broader principles that underlie the evolution of this life-history strategy in vertebrates. However, little is known about the features of the cuckoo catfish that enable this species to successfully parasitize cichlids. Here, we examine early ontogeny of the cuckoo catfish and compare it to that of its cichlid hosts as well as a non-parasitic congener. We found that cuckoo catfish embryos develop and hatch in advance of host embryos, and begin feeding on cichlid young just as they start to hatch. Overall timing of ontogeny in the cuckoo catfish was found to be similar to that of the substrate-spawning congener Synodontis lucipinnis, suggesting that more rapid development of the cuckoo catfish relative to cichlids is not a unique adaptation to brood parasitism. However, we found that cuckoo catfish progeny exhibit extensive morphological differences from S. lucipinnis, which may represent adaptations to brood parasitism. These life-history observations reveal both similarities and differences between the cuckoo catfish system and brood parasitism in other lineages. This article is part of the theme issue 'The coevolutionary biology of brood parasitism: from mechanism to pattern'.
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