“Bad news for kids: Parents do not defend their offspring at all cost, bird study shows”

            This article was basically about birds giving up their life for their offspring when predators come. Scientists presented a few different threats to a mother bird’s offspring; to see which predator the mother bird would attack. They presented a snake, which is a high risk to the young, but a low risk to the parent because it doesn’t have great mobility.  The mother bird attacked the snake because a snake isn’t a predator that is of high risk to her. However, when they presented a predator of high risk to the mother, she just let out alarming calls and did not attack. Studies showed that mother birds attack certain predators based on how high the risk factors are for them, not so much their offspring. Mother birds also tend do defend older offspring rather than younger offspring because if they die while defending them, the older ones have a better chance of survival and they have already invested more time and energy into their older offspring.

            I chose this article because the title got my attention and I thought it was an interesting topic. I liked how they did the experiment, and I think it makes sense for mother birds to protect their older offspring first. It was a little surprising that the mother bird didn’t do anything and everything to protect her offspring but the results of the experiment did make sense. 

APA citation

University of Vienna. (2014, November 24). Bad news for kids: Parents do not defend their offspring at all cost, bird study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 4, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141124080926.htm