(Go Go Sadie) Jo Jo the Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus)

(Go Go Sadie) Jo Jo the Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus)

There are 37 different species of Toucans.

Toucans are frugivores, so they eat mostly fruits and nuts. However, they occasionally snack on insects, small lizards, bird eggs, and tree frogs.

Snakes and lizards often raid bird nests. Birds of prey, such as eagles and hawks, are predators of many species of birds. Felines, such as jaguars and margays, will also eat a toucan.

The 7.5-inch-long (19-centimeter-long) beak may be seen as a desirable mating trait, but if so, it is one that both male and female toucans possess. In fact, both sexes use their bills to catch tasty morsels and pitch them to one another during a mating ritual fruit toss. The birds use their beaks to reach fruit on branches that are too small to support their weight, and also to skin their pickings.

As a weapon, the bill is a bit more show than substance. It is a honeycomb of bone that actually contains a lot of air. While its size may deter predators, it is of little use in combating them.

A key function of the toucan’s large colorful beak is to help the toucan keep cool in tropical climates, or when expending a lot of energy while flying. Just as elephants flush their large ears with blood to let the heat dissipate into the air, and thus keep the core temperature of the body stable, so the toucan uses its massive beak to radiate heat away rapidly. The beak is able to cool the bird because heat is transferred into it through the blood and can then be dissipated into the air. By increasing the flow of blood to the beak, which comprises 30 to 50 per cent of the toucan's surface area, the bird succeeds in getting rid of more heat.

Toucans nest and sleep in hollow tree holes, which protect them from hunters and stalkers. If they don't fit, they turn themselves into a feathery ball to make their body smaller.

Toucans live in small flocks of about six birds; they nest in tree holes their bright colors actually provide good camouflage in the rain forest canopy. They will often set up a raucous chorus of noise whenever a predator is near the flock; Toucans are very noisy.

Toucans live in the canopy layer, high in the trees, where they can build nests and protect their young from understory and forest floor predators. Toucans nest in tree holes. They usually have two to four eggs each year, which both parents care for. Young toucans do not have a large bill at birth—it grows as they develop and does not become full size for several months.

Toucans spread fruit seeds! They eat the fruit, and the seeds pass through their stomachs unharmed. In other words, many forest trees do not grow under a parent tree, but grow where birds drop the seeds