The Cuckoo bird’s scientific name is Cuculidae. The cuckoo is well-known for its unmistakable call, from which it gets its name, and for its habit of laying its eggs in other birds’ nests. Cuckoos are fairly large birds, with slender wings and tails. They are found in most parts of the world, but mainly in tropical areas.
A female cuckoo lays only one egg in each nest, and an individual cuckoo will almost always keep to one kind of nest – such as that of the meadow pipit. The cuckoo’s egg is usually larger than that of the host bird, but it has a similar pattern and is accepted by the host bird as one of its own. When the egg hatches, the young cuckoo pushes the other eggs or chicks out of the nest, and the foster parents continue to feed it until it is fully grown.
Cuckoo bird scientific name – Cuculidae
In the final stages, the young cuckoo maybe two or three times the size of the foster parents that feed it. Many people listen for the first call of the cuckoo as a sign of returning spring. Only the male bird sings ‘cuckoo’.
As we already mentioned, the scientific name of the cuckoo is Cuculidae, and they are found on all continents except Antarctica. Most cuckoo species do not migrate, but there are species that do seasonal migrations.
