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Kingbirds Steal from Wasps
Learning to nab prey from another species for a quick meal
© David Clark
Kingbirds are robin-sized flycatchers that excel at plucking insects from the air. They’ll even tackle prey as big as cicadas. Finding naturally-camouflaged cicadas hidden among the leaves is hard work. But two species of kingbirds in Arizona found a shortcut — stealing them from cicada-killer wasps! The female wasps, nearly two inches long, paralyze cicadas and bring them to their burrows for their young to eat. The kingbirds have learned to ambush wasps carrying cicadas on the way back to their burrows.
BirdNote®
Kingbirds Steal Cicadas from Wasps
Written by Ed Ricciuti
This is BirdNote.
[Thick-billed Kingbird call]
Kingbirds are robin-sized flycatchers that excel at plucking insects from the air. They’ll even tackle prey as big as cicadas.
Finding well-camouflaged cicadas hidden among the leaves is hard work. But two species of kingbirds in Arizona found a shortcut — stealing them from cicada-killer wasps! Scientists noticed that Cassin’s and Thick-billed Kingbirds gather near cicada-killer burrows. The female wasps, nearly two inches long, paralyze the cicadas and bring them to their burrows for their young to eat.
The cicada is almost as big as the wasp — so a wasp flying with a cicada is vulnerable to attack. A kingbird will dart from a perch and try to wrestle the cicada away, like a pirate of the skies.
[Thick-billed Kingbird call]
The Thick-billed Kingbird has a beak big enough to crunch a cicada’s hard exoskeleton, says researcher Joe Coelho. But Cassin’s Kingbirds have to beat their prey against a branch first.
[Cassin’s Kingbird call]
Even if the wasps make it past the kingbirds, they risk ambush on the ground from an even bigger thief: roadrunners.
[Greater Roadrunner call]
All told, the wasps have about a fifty-fifty chance of making it home with their cargo intact.
[Greater Roadrunner call]
For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Thick-billed Kingbird ML109172 recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller, Cassin’s Kingbird ML50224 Geoffrey A. Keller, and Greater Roadrunner ML256178591 recorded by Andrew Spencer.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote March 2023
Narrator: Michael Stein
ID# TBKI-CAKI-01-2023-03-29 TBKI-CAKI-01
Reference:
https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/19/1/13/5305722
Ed Ricciuti
Writer
Michael Stein
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