Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Laura vobl bum Here A two can sam that bird
Speaker 1: with the horn shaped, rainbow striped bill on the fruit
Speaker 1: Loops Cereal box made the two can recognizable to generations
Speaker 1: of people who have never even been to the neotropics.
Speaker 1: Due to their undeniable graphic appeal. Two cans have been
Speaker 1: used to promote everything from Guinness beer in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: But two cans in actuality don't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with beer, democracy or loops, though they definitely concern themselves
Speaker 1: with fruit. Twocns are a group of social birds native
Speaker 1: to Central and South America. They spend their days doing
Speaker 1: what any good fruit vore does, dispersing the seeds of
Speaker 1: the plants whose fruits they eat. The smallest Tucan species
Speaker 1: is only about eleven inches or twenty eight centimeters tall
Speaker 1: and weighs only about four and a half ounces or
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty grams, while the largest is nearly
Speaker 1: three times as tall and six times is heavy. There
Speaker 1: are over forty two canned species, but what they have
Speaker 1: in common is their preference for their home turf. Twucans
Speaker 1: do not migrate, their habit of making nests in the
Speaker 1: hollow cavities of trees, and of course, their long and
Speaker 1: often colorful bills. Those bills are made of caraten like
Speaker 1: human hair, only it's organized in a stiff, lightweight honeycomb structure,
Speaker 1: and depending on the species, their bills can come in
Speaker 1: patterns of every color and spectrum, from blues and greens,
Speaker 1: through yellows and oranges to reds and purples. For the article,
Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email
Speaker 1: with Thomas Schulenberg, who studies neotropical birds at the Cornell
Speaker 1: Lab of Ornithology. He explained Tucans use their bills to
Speaker 1: do all the things that any bird would do, but
Speaker 1: perhaps the most important function is to grab food. The
Speaker 1: Tucans are primarily frugivorous, so that means they are using
Speaker 1: the bill to snag fruit. Much of the fruit that
Speaker 1: they eat can be swallowed in a single gulp. The
Speaker 1: bird grabs something with the tip of its bill, then
Speaker 1: tosses it towards the back of the throat and swallows two.
Speaker 1: Cans also capture and eat small vertebrates when they find
Speaker 1: them of mostly small lizards and frogs, and the eggs
Speaker 1: and nestlings of smaller birds. Aside from feeding, twocans use
Speaker 1: the bill to preen the plumage, just like any other bird.
Speaker 1: Of course, a bird doesn't need a bill as splendid
Speaker 1: as a twucans to eat fruit. Many other avian frugivores
Speaker 1: have substantially smaller bills, so it must be that the
Speaker 1: bill of the two cans serves some other rolls aside
Speaker 1: from chowing down. In many two can species, the bill
Speaker 1: and head are indeed used in displays that is a
Speaker 1: communications with their own kind. Schulenberg said. The larger species
Speaker 1: of tucans, the genus Rimfastus, the model for the fruit
Speaker 1: loops icon, often perch on exposed sites in the canopy
Speaker 1: and call while throwing the head back and swinging it
Speaker 1: from side to side. And in all species, the bill
Speaker 1: of the male is significantly longer than the bill of
Speaker 1: the female, So presumably the size of the twuocan bill
Speaker 1: owes as much or more to sexual selection as it
Speaker 1: does to any functional requirement. Twuocan's bills might also be
Speaker 1: useful for shedding excess heat. A study published in Science
Speaker 1: magazine in two thousand and nine suggested that given the
Speaker 1: surface area of the bill, which accounts for between thirty
Speaker 1: and fifty percent of the bird's entire body, a twocan's
Speaker 1: beak receives a lot of blood, which can serve as
Speaker 1: a good tool for thermal exchange. Schulenberg said there's a
Speaker 1: growing awareness now that the bill serves a similar function
Speaker 1: even in species with much smaller bills, such as sparrows.
Speaker 1: Since tucans don't migrate, you don't find two can species
Speaker 1: anywhere other than their native range, unless, of course, they
Speaker 1: were brought somewhere through the exotic pet trade. However, twucans
Speaker 1: bear a striking resemblance to a type of bird found
Speaker 1: in subtropical Africa and Asia called a hornbill. Both are
Speaker 1: large birds with a large, long, colorful bill. Superficially very similar,
Speaker 1: but they're not related to one another basically at all.
Speaker 1: Schulenberg said. The two canon hornbill branches of the bird
Speaker 1: world diverged from each other around fifty two to fifty
Speaker 1: five million years ago, so they've each been going their
Speaker 1: own way for a long long time. Any similarities between
Speaker 1: them are the result of convergent evolution. The independent acquisition
Speaker 1: of similar traits or behaviors. And yes, although you do
Speaker 1: have to be in the neotropics to see a wild
Speaker 1: two can, some people do keep them as pets. They're
Speaker 1: not legal in every country or even in every US state,
Speaker 1: but can be kept in some places with a special
Speaker 1: license or a zoological certificate. Two cans are active and
Speaker 1: time consuming pets, expensive due to their need for a
Speaker 1: constant supply of fresh fruit, and are long lived. A
Speaker 1: two can in captivity lives an average of around twenty
Speaker 1: to twenty five years. Also, they are wild animals that
Speaker 1: haven't had generations to get used to cohabiting with humans.
Speaker 1: Twocan whose hormones are telling him to perform a raucous
Speaker 1: mating display in your kitchen might be something you'd just
Speaker 1: have to get used to, which is much more challenging
Speaker 1: and difficult to train away than a dog that gets
Speaker 1: up too early on a Saturday morning. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article the two can is Far more
Speaker 1: than the fruit Loops mascot on how stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced
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