Cuckoos and relatives
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 125 specimens of cuckoos and their close relatives. These date from 1874 to 1992.
This collection covers the order Cuculiformes, which includes the cuckoos, and also koels, coucals and anis (Cuculidae) and the turacos (Musophagidae). It includes 25 mounted specimens, 85 skins, three skeletons and several clutches of eggs. Together these specimens represent at least 33 different species. The collection includes a series of clutches in the John Mitchell Douglas Mackenzie Collection, which may have originally belonged to Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe. It also includes the first Scottish record (third British record) of the black-billed cuckoo, from Kintyre in 1950.
About cuckoos
Cuckoos are well known as parasites of small passerine birds. They lay a single egg in the nest of another bird, which will then raise the young cuckoo chick as its own. - Broader term
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