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