Monday, August 9, 2021

Survival of the most vulnerable

American coots have a black body and white bills. Their chicks, however, sport a red-and-orange head and their necks are encircled in bright yellow-orange plumes.

Coots lay more eggs than they can raise. As a result about half of the chicks die within the first one week. After that, the parents tend to pick their favourite chicks based on their colourful plumage. The younger ones are generally the most colourful ones. 


Coots also tend to lay some of their eggs in the nests of other coots. However as the intrusive chicks tend to be less colourful, they are less likely to be picked as favourites. Hence their chance of survival is very bleak. 


This is one of the rare instances in nature where vivid colours are a sign of weakness and not strength.


 A tryst with nature. #babycoot

 
(P.C Bruce E. Lyon)



This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon’ and hyperlink it to: https://www.theblogchatter.com/


19 comments:

  1. Seems like such a waste of effort to lay more eggs than can be raised and then have so many die out!

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  2. Interesting to read about the nature's survival tricks and how you highlight them in your post.

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  3. Vivid colors as sign of weakness and not strength.. interesting way to put out the information with your own words.

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  4. Wonder how difficult or rather cruel it might be for parents to select which one to choose and which ones to be left behind to perish.
    Lovely pics!!

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  5. Wish we could pick our favourite ones too. Lovely information
    Deepika Sharma

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  6. This was an interesting read. Those colourful baby coots look so cute!

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  7. Nature has its own ways of surprising & shocking us! Nice observation. Thanks for penning this down.

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  8. Cool, never knew such things about nature. Great post. Choosing by the colour that too lightest chosen. 😎

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  9. Damn! It must be so difficult to pick a favorite :(

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  10. It is sad that many of the chicks don't survive. They have a very harsh life indeed!

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