Figure 1.

Representative photographs and mean ± s.e. reflectance of the skin of nestling bronze-cuckoos (blue lines) and their hosts (pink lines). (a) Little bronze-cuckoo (n = 10) and large-billed gerygone (n = 12). (b) Shining bronze-cuckoo (n = 8) and yellow-rumped thornbill (n = 5). (c) Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo (n = 11; photo illustrates a pale individual) and superb fairy-wren (n = 17). (d) We also include a second host of Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo (n = 4; photo illustrates a dark individual), the purple-crowned fairy-wren M. coronatus (n = 8), to illustrate some of the variation in nestling colour among malurid hosts.