Brood parasites lay eggs matching the appearance of host clutches

@article{Honza2014BroodPL,
  title={Brood parasites lay eggs matching the appearance of host clutches},
  author={Marcel Honza and Michal {\vS}ulc and V{\'a}clav Jel{\'i}nek and Milica Po{\vz}gayov{\'a} and Petr Proch{\'a}zka},
  journal={Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences},
  year={2014},
  volume={281}
}
Interspecific brood parasitism represents a prime example of the coevolutionary arms race where each party has evolved strategies in response to the other. Here, we investigated whether common cuckoos (Cuculus canorus) actively select nests within a host population to match the egg appearance of a particular host clutch. To achieve this goal, we quantified the degree of egg matching using the avian vision modelling approach. Randomization tests revealed that cuckoo eggs in naturally parasitized… 
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No evidence is found for the hypothesis that cuckoos lay eggs based on own egg color matching that of the parrotbill-cuckoo system, and it is argued theoretically that laying eggs matching those of the hosts in this system violates a key trait of the life history of cuckoo and therefore should be maladaptive.
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Naïve hosts of avian brood parasites accept foreign eggs, whereas older hosts fine-tune foreign egg discrimination during laying
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These results are consistent with the hypotheses that naïve hosts need to see and learn the appearance of their own eggs to discriminate and reject foreign eggs, whereas experienced breeders possess a recognition template of theirown eggs and reject parasitic eggs even without having to see their own egg.
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TLDR
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It is detected that cuckoos preferred to parasitize magpie nests at the laying stage but, mainly, those that already harbored one or two cuckoo eggs, which may seem counterintuitive, implies that brood parasite–host interaction is dynamic depending on phenology.
Visual discrimination of polymorphic nestlings in a cuckoo-host system
TLDR
Nestling polymorphism may be a trace of evolutionary past and may only have a marginal role in true-recognition of nestlings in the arms race in New Caledonia, and visual discrimination alone may result in higher chances of recognition errors in polymorphic than in monomorphic host broods.
Egg-spot matching in common cuckoo parasitism of the oriental reed warbler: effects of host nest availability and egg rejection
TLDR
The data suggest that both the high temporal encounter rate between cuckoo and warbler nests as well as the high egg rejection ability of the host are important factors for egg-spot matching of the cuckoos.
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