The Great Spotted Cuckoo searches for food in open areas with scattered trees and eats caterpillars and grasshoppers. It lays eggs in the nests of other birds.
The head and crest are silvery gray, and the back and wings have white spots. Its long, dark tail has a broad white tip.
The Great Spotted Cuckoo lays its eggs mainly in magpie nests. Its chicks do not evict the host's young and can grow alongside them. A study followed 262 magpie nests across four breeding seasons. Many nests received eggs from more than one cuckoo female, and some females laid again in a nest they had already used.
Nests containing three or more cuckoo eggs produced more fledged cuckoos than nests with one or two. Magpie breeding success did not differ among nests with different numbers of cuckoo eggs. The study also found no relationship between parasitism intensity and nest desertion or nest predation during the nestling period.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Across 262 magpie nests studied over four breeding seasons, nests with three or more Great Spotted Cuckoo eggs produced more fledged cuckoos. Magpie breeding success did not differ with the number of cuckoo eggs.