Crèche
In zoology, a crèche is a collection of young animals that descend from different parent animals. The term has been taken over from the French and refers to a nursery or crib.
The young animals gathered in a crèche are either completely unaccompanied by the adult animals in this group or there are only a few parent animals in the group of young animals. Crèching behavior is particularly typical for colony-breeding birds that have to cover long distances to get food. The parent birds are forced to leave their offspring alone for a long time. The young birds then concentrate in places that offer them better protection from weather conditions or from being accessed by predators.
Penguins and flamingos are among the bird species in which crèching behavior is particularly common. The number of young birds gathered in a crèche can be impressive. For greater flamingos , a crèche with 14,500 young birds was counted in the Camargue in 2000, in the Laguna de Fuente de Piedra in 1998 with 15,300 and in Lake Urmia in 1973 with 20,000 young birds. Due to the large number of young birds gathered, it was long assumed that the returning parent birds would provide any young bird with food. This has been largely refuted during the second half of the 20th century. Parent birds find their offspring based on calls within the gathering and only feed them.
supporting documents
- ^ Alan Johnson and Frank Cézilly: The Greater Flamingo . T & AD Poyser, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7136-6562-8 , p. 160
- ^ Alan Johnson and Frank Cézilly: The Greater Flamingo . T & AD Poyser, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7136-6562-8 , p. 161