The Shiny Cowbird is a bird well known to observers for its habit of laying eggs in other people's nests, in an attitude known as "parasitism". Measuring between 17 and 21 centimeters, the Shiny Cowbird has a completely dark body, with more bluish tones in the male and more brownish tones in the females. The Shiny Cowbird does not prepare its own nest and does not care for its young, leaving its eggs in the nests of different species of birds, so that their young are raised by adults of other species, hence the expression "chupinhar". Since baby Shiny Cowbirds develop incredibly fast, they tend to overlap with their "adoptive parents" original puppies. They feed on insects and seeds, but they also eat fruit, eventually. They can be seen occasionally at the Praia Vermelha Campus, having already detected a case of parasitism within the Campus, in which a baby Shiny Cowbird was cared for by a couple of yellow-headed sats.