WEBVTT - How Do Toucans Work?

0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.400
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.560
<v Speaker 1>Laura vobl bum Here A two can sam that bird

0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.440
<v Speaker 1>with the horn shaped, rainbow striped bill on the fruit

0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.280
<v Speaker 1>Loops Cereal box made the two can recognizable to generations

0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.840
<v Speaker 1>of people who have never even been to the neotropics.

0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.960
<v Speaker 1>Due to their undeniable graphic appeal. Two cans have been

0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.680
<v Speaker 1>used to promote everything from Guinness beer in the nineteen

0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.200
<v Speaker 1>thirties to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in the nineteen eighties.

0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:34.960
<v Speaker 1>But two cans in actuality don't have anything to do

0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.559
<v Speaker 1>with beer, democracy or loops, though they definitely concern themselves

0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.680
<v Speaker 1>with fruit. Twocns are a group of social birds native

0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.040
<v Speaker 1>to Central and South America. They spend their days doing

0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.239
<v Speaker 1>what any good fruit vore does, dispersing the seeds of

0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.920
<v Speaker 1>the plants whose fruits they eat. The smallest Tucan species

0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.560
<v Speaker 1>is only about eleven inches or twenty eight centimeters tall

0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:58.640
<v Speaker 1>and weighs only about four and a half ounces or

0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.600
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and thirty grams, while the largest is nearly

0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.600
<v Speaker 1>three times as tall and six times is heavy. There

0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.280
<v Speaker 1>are over forty two canned species, but what they have

0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.160
<v Speaker 1>in common is their preference for their home turf. Twucans

0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.920
<v Speaker 1>do not migrate, their habit of making nests in the

0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.760
<v Speaker 1>hollow cavities of trees, and of course, their long and

0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.040
<v Speaker 1>often colorful bills. Those bills are made of caraten like

0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.480
<v Speaker 1>human hair, only it's organized in a stiff, lightweight honeycomb structure,

0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.480
<v Speaker 1>and depending on the species, their bills can come in

0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.080
<v Speaker 1>patterns of every color and spectrum, from blues and greens,

0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:38.440
<v Speaker 1>through yellows and oranges to reds and purples. For the article,

0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.080
<v Speaker 1>this episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email

0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.560
<v Speaker 1>with Thomas Schulenberg, who studies neotropical birds at the Cornell

0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.960
<v Speaker 1>Lab of Ornithology. He explained Tucans use their bills to

0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.720
<v Speaker 1>do all the things that any bird would do, but

0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.960
<v Speaker 1>perhaps the most important function is to grab food. The

0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.600
<v Speaker 1>Tucans are primarily frugivorous, so that means they are using

0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.320
<v Speaker 1>the bill to snag fruit. Much of the fruit that

0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.560
<v Speaker 1>they eat can be swallowed in a single gulp. The

0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.760
<v Speaker 1>bird grabs something with the tip of its bill, then

0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.119
<v Speaker 1>tosses it towards the back of the throat and swallows two.

0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.640
<v Speaker 1>Cans also capture and eat small vertebrates when they find

0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.400
<v Speaker 1>them of mostly small lizards and frogs, and the eggs

0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.120
<v Speaker 1>and nestlings of smaller birds. Aside from feeding, twocans use

0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.280
<v Speaker 1>the bill to preen the plumage, just like any other bird.

0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.200
<v Speaker 1>Of course, a bird doesn't need a bill as splendid

0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.400
<v Speaker 1>as a twucans to eat fruit. Many other avian frugivores

0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.120
<v Speaker 1>have substantially smaller bills, so it must be that the

0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.920
<v Speaker 1>bill of the two cans serves some other rolls aside

0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.360
<v Speaker 1>from chowing down. In many two can species, the bill

0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.560
<v Speaker 1>and head are indeed used in displays that is a

0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:47.640
<v Speaker 1>communications with their own kind. Schulenberg said. The larger species

0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.720
<v Speaker 1>of tucans, the genus Rimfastus, the model for the fruit

0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.960
<v Speaker 1>loops icon, often perch on exposed sites in the canopy

0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.960
<v Speaker 1>and call while throwing the head back and swinging it

0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.280
<v Speaker 1>from side to side. And in all species, the bill

0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.480
<v Speaker 1>of the male is significantly longer than the bill of

0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.120
<v Speaker 1>the female, So presumably the size of the twuocan bill

0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.080
<v Speaker 1>owes as much or more to sexual selection as it

0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:14.400
<v Speaker 1>does to any functional requirement. Twuocan's bills might also be

0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.560
<v Speaker 1>useful for shedding excess heat. A study published in Science

0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.400
<v Speaker 1>magazine in two thousand and nine suggested that given the

0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.080
<v Speaker 1>surface area of the bill, which accounts for between thirty

0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.519
<v Speaker 1>and fifty percent of the bird's entire body, a twocan's

0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.800
<v Speaker 1>beak receives a lot of blood, which can serve as

0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.600
<v Speaker 1>a good tool for thermal exchange. Schulenberg said there's a

0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.280
<v Speaker 1>growing awareness now that the bill serves a similar function

0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.440
<v Speaker 1>even in species with much smaller bills, such as sparrows.

0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.360
<v Speaker 1>Since tucans don't migrate, you don't find two can species

0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.480
<v Speaker 1>anywhere other than their native range, unless, of course, they

0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.760
<v Speaker 1>were brought somewhere through the exotic pet trade. However, twucans

0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.160
<v Speaker 1>bear a striking resemblance to a type of bird found

0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.160
<v Speaker 1>in subtropical Africa and Asia called a hornbill. Both are

0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:05.720
<v Speaker 1>large birds with a large, long, colorful bill. Superficially very similar,

0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.440
<v Speaker 1>but they're not related to one another basically at all.

0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.560
<v Speaker 1>Schulenberg said. The two canon hornbill branches of the bird

0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.520
<v Speaker 1>world diverged from each other around fifty two to fifty

0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.800
<v Speaker 1>five million years ago, so they've each been going their

0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.839
<v Speaker 1>own way for a long long time. Any similarities between

0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.760
<v Speaker 1>them are the result of convergent evolution. The independent acquisition

0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.600
<v Speaker 1>of similar traits or behaviors. And yes, although you do

0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.040
<v Speaker 1>have to be in the neotropics to see a wild

0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.480
<v Speaker 1>two can, some people do keep them as pets. They're

0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.599
<v Speaker 1>not legal in every country or even in every US state,

0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.599
<v Speaker 1>but can be kept in some places with a special

0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.840
<v Speaker 1>license or a zoological certificate. Two cans are active and

0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.760
<v Speaker 1>time consuming pets, expensive due to their need for a

0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.080
<v Speaker 1>constant supply of fresh fruit, and are long lived. A

0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.679
<v Speaker 1>two can in captivity lives an average of around twenty

0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.760
<v Speaker 1>to twenty five years. Also, they are wild animals that

0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.560
<v Speaker 1>haven't had generations to get used to cohabiting with humans.

0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.359
<v Speaker 1>Twocan whose hormones are telling him to perform a raucous

0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.120
<v Speaker 1>mating display in your kitchen might be something you'd just

0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.040
<v Speaker 1>have to get used to, which is much more challenging

0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.680
<v Speaker 1>and difficult to train away than a dog that gets

0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:23.000
<v Speaker 1>up too early on a Saturday morning. Today's episode is

0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.200
<v Speaker 1>based on the article the two can is Far more

0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.600
<v Speaker 1>than the fruit Loops mascot on how stuffworks dot Com,

0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.839
<v Speaker 1>written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio

0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.240
<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.599
<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.560
<v Speaker 1>the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:40.479
<v Speaker 1>your favorite shows.