By Susan Milius
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — What does not kill them makes them successful blue-footed boobies.
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Among seabirds named for their big, cornflower-blue feet, adversity early in life doesn’t necessarily put kids at a lifelong disadvantage, says Hugh Drummond of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. Though older nestlings relentlessly peck junior ones and snatch away the biggest share of food, a persecuted younger chick often succeeds in life as well as its tormentor does.
In spite of chickhood trauma, younger sibs that survive end up having about as many chicks themselves over the course of their lives as their bullying siblings do, Drummond said July 28 at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society. He speculated that evolution might have favored some kind of compensation for poor starts in booby life.