Anecdotal evidence of interspecific parental care: feeding and brooding of robin (Petroica australis) nestlings by a female bellbird (Anthornis melanura)

摘要

Interspecific feeding behaviour has been observed in 22 bird families and 71 species (Shy 1982). Several explanations have been offered for this unusual behaviour. For example, it is possible that having an exacerbated drive to care for young is generally advantageous, and that feeding heterospecific young is so rare that no evolutionary modification of this trait occurs. Furthermore, although interspecific parental care provides little evolutionary benefit to the feeding bird, individuals engaging in interspecific provisioning behaviour could benefit by increasing their parental abilities (Riedman 1982; Shy 1982) if experience improves nesting success (DeStevens 1978; Lehrman & Wortis 1967).