49 Fun Facts About Toucan

Toucans are native to which region?

The Neotropics, Mexico to Argentina. Toucans are weak fliers that rarely cross open water, so the family has never spread beyond the American tropics.

Despite the huge bill, toucans are close relatives of which familiar birds?

Woodpeckers. The two look nothing alike, yet both sit in the order Piciformes, alongside the honeyguides that lead people to wild bees' nests.

Which Old World birds fill the same ecological niche as toucans in Africa and Asia?

Hornbills. The two families are not close relatives: each arrived at a huge bill and a taste for fruit on its own, a textbook case of convergent evolution.

Who keeps a clutch of toucan eggs warm?

Both parents, in turns. Male and female swap places on the eggs for a little over two weeks, then share the work of feeding the chicks.

Where do toucans usually nest?

In tree hollows dug by other animals. The famous bill is almost useless as a digging tool, so toucans move into old holes carved by other birds or into natural cavities.

The word 'toucan' comes from which language family, via Portuguese?

Tupi-Guaraní. Tupi speakers called the bird tukana, a name said to imitate its call, and the word travelled through Portuguese and French into English.

Which of these birds is a smaller member of the toucan family?

The aracari. Aracaris and toucanets wear the same outsized bill, so most birds in the toucan family are not actually called toucans.

Which is the largest member of the toucan family?

The toco toucan. About two feet long, it also carries the largest bill for its body size of any bird, which has made it a favourite model for advertising mascots.

How are a toucan's toes arranged?

Two forward, two backward. The paired toes clamp a branch from both sides, the same grip that parrots use for a life spent clambering through the trees.

In most toucans, how does a female's bill differ from a male's?

It is shorter. In most species the sexes wear the same colours, so the length of the bill is often the only outward clue to which bird is which.

Why is a toucan's huge bill so light?

Bone struts filled with foam-like keratin. The sheath is the same protein as fingernails, and the whole thing is so flimsy that the fearsome-looking bill is almost useless as a weapon.

The tooth-like serrations on a toucan's bill once led naturalists to think it ate what?

Fish. Working from a bill alone, one sixteenth-century writer pictured a web-footed water bird.

Researchers have found the toucan's bill is a highly efficient system for what?

Regulating body temperature. By opening or closing the blood flow to its bill, a toucan can shed heat about as well as an elephant does through its ears.

What is unusual about a toucan's long tongue?

It is frayed like a feather. Bristles down both edges are thought to make the long, narrow tongue better at catching and tasting food.

How does a toucan fold itself up to sleep?

Tail snapped forward over its head. A ball-and-socket joint at the base of the tail lets it flip right over, turning the bird, bill laid along its back, into a ball of feathers.

In which layer of the rainforest do toucans spend almost all their time?

The canopy. That is where the fruit is, so toucans feed, court and sleep in the treetops and rarely set foot on the forest floor.

Mountain toucans live in which range, right up to the tree line?

The Andes. While most toucans keep to the steamy lowlands, the mountain toucans have climbed into cool forest high on the slopes.

How are toucans usually seen in the wild?

In small, noisy flocks. A band moves through the forest together, and pairs peel away to breed before rejoining it with their young.

What do toucans often do while a meal of fruit digests?

Fence with their bills. Fruit takes a long time to digest, so the birds fill the wait with mock duels and games of chase.

Toucans live mainly on fruit, but what do they take from the nests of smaller birds?

Eggs and nestlings. The long bill reaches deep into other birds' nests, and the extra protein matters most when toucans have chicks of their own to feed.

What crucial ecological role do toucans play in their forests?

Seed dispersal. Toucans spread over four-fifths of the seeds of the manduvi, the tree in which the rare hyacinth macaw nests, even though they also rob that macaw's nests.

What is the toucan's predominant call?

A frog-like croak. Listeners also describe grunts and snores, and the very name toucan is said to imitate the bird's call.

On British roads, a 'toucan crossing' lets pedestrians cross alongside whom?

Cyclists. The name is a pun: walkers and riders get the green signal together, so 'two can' cross at once.

The constellation Tucana, named after the toucan, contains most of what?

The Small Magellanic Cloud. Tucana was one of twelve southern constellations drawn up in the 1590s from the observations of two Dutch navigators, and first appeared on a globe in 1598.

A toucan featured in the 1930s and 1940s advertising of which drink?

Guinness. Artist John Gilroy drew the bird for the brewer's posters alongside a kangaroo, an ostrich, a seal and a lion, and it became as much a symbol of the stout as the harp.

Which crime novelist, then an advertising copywriter, dreamed up the toucan for a famous drinks campaign and wrote its verses?

Dorothy L. Sayers. At the agency S. H. Benson she introduced the bird and wrote its punning verse, which ended 'just think what Toucan do'.

Toucan Sam was introduced in 1963 as the mascot of which cereal?

Froot Loops. In the adverts he can smell the cereal from a great distance and always sniffs out a hidden bowl of it.

Who originally voiced Toucan Sam, using an ordinary American accent and Pig Latin?

Mel Blanc. The voice of Bugs Bunny gave the bird an American accent; the British one that fans remember came later, under his successors Paul Frees and Maurice LaMarche.

What is surprising about the different-coloured pieces in Toucan Sam's cereal?

They all taste the same. The maker has confirmed that every piece is flavoured alike, so the lime-green ones are no more lime than the red ones are cherry.

In which country are Social Democracy Party members nicknamed 'tucanos' after their toucan mascot?

Brazil. The centre-right PSDB took the bird as its symbol, and tucano, the Portuguese for toucan, became the nickname of its members.

What does a toucan's flight look like?

Bursts of flapping, then a glide. The small wings are built for short trips between trees, so the bird rises and dips through the air and seldom flies far.

Which aircraft maker named its turboprop military trainer the Tucano, after the toucan?

Embraer. The trainer first flew in 1980, and a version built under licence in Belfast went on to teach Royal Air Force pilots.

Which comedian voiced Tuca, the impulsive toucan of the animated series Tuca & Bertie?

Tiffany Haddish. Netflix dropped the show after a single season, but Adult Swim picked it up and gave her loud toucan two more.

How do toucans mostly travel from one branch to the next?

By hopping. With small wings built only for short trips, a toucan is far nimbler bounding from branch to branch than it is in the air.

What colour is the largest toucan's bill?

Yellow-orange with a black base and tip spot. A young bird starts out with a duller, stubbier bill, which takes months to grow into the adult's blazing colours.

For about its first three weeks, a toucan chick cannot do what?

Open its eyes. The chick hatches blind and helpless, and is fed in the dark of the nest for weeks before it ever sees daylight.

How do courting toucans often win over a mate?

By tossing fruit to each other. One bird plucks a berry with the tip of its bill and lobs it to the other, a game of catch that ends in mating.

The saw-toothed edges of a toucan's bill are thought to help it do what?

Peel fruit. The serrated rim grips a slippery fig or berry and strips off the skin, and gives a toucan a firm hold on anything else it catches.

The keel-billed toucan is the national bird of which country?

Belize. National honours have not spared it: by 2021 the species was listed as near threatened, squeezed by forest clearance and trapping for the pet trade.

How does a toucan move fruit from the tip of its bill to its throat?

Tosses its head back. The fruit is picked up with the very tip of the bill, then flipped straight down the throat and swallowed whole.

The channel-billed toucan is found in tropical South America and on which Caribbean island?

Trinidad. The island sits on South America's continental shelf just 11 km from Venezuela, close enough for a bird that hates crossing open water.

Rafael, the toucan who tries to teach Blu to fly in the 2011 film Rio, is voiced by whom?

George Lopez. His Rafael is a carnival-loving family man who leads the chained-together macaws to a bulldog friend to have their cuffs removed.

Mountain toucans have a call that is said to sound like which animal?

A donkey. Living far higher than their lowland cousins, mountain toucans bray instead of making the family's usual calls.

In what state do toucan chicks emerge from the egg?

Completely naked. With no down at all, the chicks rely on their parents for warmth, and their first feathers only begin to show after three or four weeks.

How does its long bill help a heavy toucan at feeding time?

It reaches fruit on thin twigs. The bird stays put on a sturdy branch and plucks everything within range, which saves it the effort of moving about.

Captive toucans are prone to a disease caused by storing too much of which mineral?

Iron. A wild diet of fruit contains very little of it, so on the wrong food in captivity the metal can build up in a toucan's liver to a toxic level.

47 Tucanae, in the constellation of the toucan, is one of the sky's brightest what?

Globular clusters. Although it lies about 15,000 light-years away, this ball of old stars is bright enough to be seen without a telescope.

Besides calling, how do toucans make noise to signal to each other?

Clattering their bills. Toucans clack the two halves together or rap the bill on a branch, a display they also use when a predator comes too close.

Toucan chicks hatch with thick pads on their heels to protect them from what?

A nest floor of fruit stones. The adults add no soft lining, only the pits they cough up, so the chicks spend their first weeks sitting on a bed of seeds.