![]() You might start to get curious about this question. When birds hatch at different timings, this can lead to severe consequences such as uneven competition among hatchlings, causing a lower survival rate of hatchlings overall.īasically, those eggs that hatch earlier due to increased ambient temperatures will grow faster than those who hatch later, causing them to receive less food from parents and have less chance for survival. ![]() ![]() This was discovered in a study done on Zebra Finches led by Simon Griffith from Macquarie University. Climate change, in particular, the increasing happenings of and intensity of heatwaves in recent times can cause some eggs in a nest to hatch within a shorter duration than others. Climate ChangeĪll of the above factors have been related to natural occurrences, but this point is the only thing influenced by man: climate change. However, you will notice that American Kestrels lay their eggs in May even though their hatchlings are precocial, so this can be an exception that scientists can look into in the future! 4. Here are some examples of bird species and their relatively early egg-laying months, longer hatch duration and their precociality: Bird Species Precocial hatchlings have to be laid earlier in Spring so that there is sufficient incubation time for them to develop over Spring. This is because they produce precocial hatchlings. Here’s how the relationship between the two factors are like (blue: average hatch duration in day, orange: egg-laying events)įor example, the Barn Owl and Red-tailed Hawk lay their eggs early in March and have a significantly higher hatch duration than the others. Here’s a table to summarize the differences between Precocial and Altricial young: Precocial/AltricialityĪfter examining the first lay dates of birds (the day that an egg is first laid) and their relations to average hatch duration, I realized that there may be a trend! Scientists have discovered that birds can either choose to have cheap eggs paired with expensive care for their helpless young (altricial) OR expensive eggs paired with inexpensive care for their more independent young (Precocial). Precocial: Male wood duck (left), female wood duck and its independent hatchlings (right). This is because if a bird chooses to incubate its eggs less, the incubation temperature drops, extending the time needed for incubation. You may find this interesting: the amount of attention the parent birds give to their eggs actually affects the incubation time, thereby affecting the hatch duration required! Birds that choose to neglect their eggs actually cause a LOT of variability of hatch durations between species. Īltricial: American Robin feeding its helpless hatchlings In addition, birds also occasionally rotate the eggs to ensure that none of them cool. The average clutch size, as it turns out, does NOT seem to be correlated with the average hatch duration of the species! Scientists have actually found that birds with larger clutches would simply compensate by spending more time incubating the eggs in their nest than others with smaller clutches. What’s interesting is that if we look into the trends, (and scientists also agree on this) the hatch duration of bird eggs does not vary by more than a few days within its own species. There are some birds whose eggs hatch very quickly, such as Northern Cardinals with an average of 12.5 days, but there are also those that take a long time for their eggs to hatch, like Wood Ducks, which take an average of 40.5 days to hatch. ![]() Now we can clearly see that birds have very different hatch duration, and some of them vary by a lot. Here’s a table to sum up hatch duration, average clutch size, and egg-laying month for some bird species: Bird Species Did you enjoy playing around with the tool I made? Now let’s dive into more interesting details you can learn from using the tool: the difference in egg hatch duration among bird species! Not all birds are built the same as they have very distinct physiological differences which require different hatch durations.
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