Cowbird mothers abandon their eggs in the nests of other bird species, but the chicks somehow manage to find their flock and ...

When a female cowbird is ready to have a baby, she’ll stake out another bird’s nest, wait until the coast is clear, then slip ...

Since some brood parasites rely on several different bird species as foster parents, more than a sixth of all species in the avian world care for chicks that aren’t their own at some point.

The bird tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus is not one to stick around in a single host for too long. As an adult, it reproduces inside of the intestines of fish-eating water birds.

The bird tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus, like many parasites, has a complicated life cycle. As its name suggests, it infects birds, and particularly those that live by water.

Q: Don’t tapeworms harm their hosts? Birds are pretty fragile. Phillips: Parasites don’t want to be on a sinking ship. It isn’t evolutionarily successful for the parasite if its host dies. It’s not ...

A single shift of a parasite from one host species to another can trigger catastrophic infectious disease outbreaks. Despite ...

The team is "here to stay," no matter what, lead researcher Keith Bowers said, amid federal funding changes for scientific ...

Certain types of tapeworm make sticklebacks behave carelessly and thus become easier prey for birds. A team of biologists have now demonstrated for the first time that the tapeworm not only ...

Birds, too. Fish get tapeworms, as do hyenas, antelopes, moose, wolves, insects such as beetles and ants … and the list just goes on. ...