terrain for threats. The female lays three, sometimes two eggs, which are bluish to buff green with brown and lilac spots and measure around 22–27 by 17–19 mm, or about 25 by 18.3 mm on average. Both parents incubate, but the female does most of the work. The eggs hatch after 14–16 days, and nestlings take again as long to fledge. The parents usually destroy the nest after the young have left it. They continue to feed their offspring for about seven more weeks, after which the young can forage on their own. They stay with their parents for about five months. The black cuckoo (Cuculus clamosus) is a common brood parasite of this boubou, parasitizing about 2 percent of its nests. When tropical boubous spot black cuckoos, they usually try to mob them away and are often successful in this; some pairs, however, seem to be very inept at preventing brood parasitism and may be affected several times per year. See also Animal communication Footnotes References Grafe, T. Ulmar & Bitz, Johannes H. (2004): An acoustic postconflict display in the duetting tropical boubou (Laniarius aethiopicus): a signal of victory? BMC Ecol. 4: 1. PDF fulltext Harris, Tony & Franklin, Kim (2000): 60. Tropical Boubou (Bell Shrike). In: Shrikes & bush-shrikes : including wood-shrikes, helmet-shrikes, flycatcher-shrikes, philentomas, batises and wattle-eyes: 257–250, plate 24. Christopher Helm, London. Nguembock, B.; Fjeldså, J.; Couloux, A. & Pasquet, E. (2008): Phylogeny of Laniarius: molecular data reveal L. liberatus synonymous with L. erlangeri and "plumage coloration" as unreliable morphological characters for defining species and species groups. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 48(2): 396–407. (HTML abstract) Traylor, Melvin A. & Parelius, Daniel (1967): A Collection of Birds from the Ivory Coast. Fieldiana Zool. 51(7): 91–117. Fulltext at the Internet Archive External links Tropical boubou - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds. tropical boubou tropical boubou Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa tropical boubou Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN