Maleos (a megapode bird in Sulawesi, Indonesia) bury their eggs and let the heat from geothermal and/or the sun hatch their eggs.
Megapodes (large foot) are also known an incubator birds or mound builders. They do not build a nest and sit on their eggs to hatch them. Most of them bury their eggs in mounds, incorporating vegetation that provides the heat from composting to hatch the eggs. A few, like the Maleo, bury their eggs in soil or sand where geothermal and/or the sun provides the necessary heat.
The chicks are “superprecocial”. They are very well developed when they emerge from the egg and are completely self reliant. They receive no parental care.
15 дек 2015
