Cuckoos impersonate pigs to escape from predators

Everyone is talking about the benefits of knowing foreign languages. In the animal kingdom, life often depends on such an unusual skill. For example, earthen cuckoos learned to knock with their beaks, imitating the click of fangs of pigs bakers. This discourages predators who do not want to mess with a flock of wild pigs.

Food and safety

Ground cuckoos (Neomorphus) live in the forests of South America and make friendships with animals from the family of peccaria, close relatives of wild pigs. With the help of their tusks, bakers tear the earth in search of food, to the joy of earthen cuckoos, in passing pulling out worms and insects.

In the photo: Bakers

And those and others are better off not meeting big cats in South American forests - for example, jaguars. However, the cats themselves do not like to attack large herds of bakers, since in the group they represent a formidable force. To warn the enemy that there are many of them, bakers emit a specific click of fangs. Therefore, earthen cuckoos also prefer to stay close to them.

Do you speak bakers?

Cuckoos are generally known in nature for controversial acts. For example, by laying their eggs in other people's nests. So now these birds have found a way to protect themselves at the expense of others. Scientists noticed that the clicking of the beaks of earthen cuckoos is similar to the sounds made by bakers' fangs - that is, they can also scare away jaguars.

Pictured: Ground Cuckoo (Neomorphus)

On the one hand, cuckoos here again behave dishonestly, using someone else's power for their own purposes. But scientists suggest that by clicking, which is familiar to bakers, cuckoos can warn neighbors that danger is nearby. So there is an exchange of information between completely different species.