Cooperative and plural breeding by the precocial Vulturine Guineafowl.

Cooperative breeding is thought to be more common in altricial species, with a few described cases in precocial species. However, cooperative breeding may also be more difficult to detect in precocial species and could have been overlooked. In this study, we investigated whether precocial Vulturine guineafowl (<i>Acryllium vulturinum</i>) breed cooperatively and if so, how care is distributed among the group members. Our results confirm that vulturine guineafowl are cooperative breeders adding to growing evidence that cooperative breeding may be more widespread in precocial species than previously thought, thereby providing a counterpoint to the altriciality-cooperative breeding hypothesis.