1 SPECIAL: ANECDOTES IN ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 2 Killing behaviour of adult brood parasites 3 Šulc M.1,*, Štětková G.1,2, Jelínek V. 1, Czyż B.3, Dyrcz A.3, Karpińska O.4, 4 Kamionka-Kanclerska K.4, Rowiński P.4, Maziarz M.5, Gruszczyński A.5, Hughes A.E.6, 5 Honza M. 1 61Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic 72Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech 8Republic 93Department of Behavioural Ecology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland 104Department of Forest Zoology and Wildlife Management, Warsaw University of Life 11Sciences (SGGW), Warsaw, Poland 125Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland 136Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, U.K. 14*corresponding author: Michal Šulc (
[email protected]) 15 16Summary 17Decades of studies have revealed the striking adaptations of avian brood parasites for 18their unique reproductive lifestyle. Several have reported that adult brood parasites 19sometimes kill host nestlings, although the reasons for this behaviour remain unclear. 20Using continuous video-recording and camera traps, we observed the same behaviour in 21the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, showing that both host and parasite nestlings can 22be killed. The latter has never previously been observed in any avian brood parasite. 23Here, we review this phenomenon and discuss possible explanations. 24 25Keywords: nestling infanticide, chick ejection, farming, Mafia, co-evolution 26 27Main text 28Infants are an obvious target for extermination because of their vulnerability, therefore they 29are often exploited by various predators (Weidinger 2009). Apart from this relatively simple 30predator–prey relationship, there is also the phenomenon of infanticide when a young 31offspring is killed by an adult animal of the same species.