Bird beaks don't just collect food. They can also be used to thin hair, fight, courtship, show off, feed cubs, build nests, etc., and even regulate body temperature. Everything is thanks to their beaks.
Here are thirteen species of birds on Earth with unique beaks, and their unique uses.
▼ Togo toucan
▲ The togo toucan's large beak helps it dissipate heat and maintain proper body temperature
The beak of the Togo toucan is incredible, not only with a gorgeous appearance but also with a third of its body length. But its gorgeous beak is used to collect physical objects, scare predators, attract mates, and defend territory. Recent studies have also shown that it also helps keep the body cool in hot tropical climates.
▼ Oriental crested hornbill
▲ The Oriental-crowned hornbill has a large "helmet" at the top of its beak
With this big beak, it needs the support of strong muscle and vertebral fusion. It is used to catch prey and fight. However, the most famous feature of most hornbills is the protruding top of the beak, the "helmet". This "strengthening mouth" is used by males to fight and attract females.
▼ Bald Eagle
▲ The sharp beak of the bald eagle can tear off a piece of flesh in an instant
Bald eagles have curved vertical protrusions on the upper beak, suitable for tearing prey to swallow, and are typical carnivores: feeding on large fish such as salmon and trout, water birds such as wild ducks and seagulls, and small mammals living on the water's edge.
▼ Knife-billed hummingbird
▲ The hidden nectar does not have any pressure for the sword-billed hummingbird
Native to the Andes Mountains of South America, in dense forests at altitudes above 2500 meters, it is distributed in South American countries. The knife-billed hummingbird has a long beak, which is adapted to the honey source plants of the local corolla.
▼ Dalmatian pelican
▲ The mouth of the Dalmatian pelican looks like a large mesh bag
The Dalmatian pelican has a large sac formed by connecting the lower mouth shell with the skin, which can be freely retracted and retracted. Fishing children, they put the water and the fish together into the huge throat sac, and then drain the water to swallow the fish. The hook at the end of the top mandible is used to hook fish.
▼ Flamingos
▲ Flamingo bird beak is a filter to come
The mouth is short and thick, the middle of the upper mouth protrudes downwards, the lower mouth is larger and grooved, and the upper beak is smaller than the lower beak. It feeds on small shrimp, clams, insects, algae, etc. When foraging, dip your head down, turn your mouth upside down, suck the food into your mouth, drain the excess water and inedible dregs, and swallow slowly.
▼ Red-necked regurgitated sandpiper
▲ The red-necked sandpiper has a slender, upwardly curved beak
All four species of red-necked regurgitated sandpipers have formed their own unique beak, with a long, upwardly curved beak. Their beak allows them to skim mud and water while foraging. This provokes small invertebrates lurking below, and then uses their beaks to pick out their prey.
▼ Yellow-billed hornbills
▲ The powerful beak of the yellow-billed hornbill is used for foraging for food
Yellow-billed hornbills eat mainly plant seeds, small insects, as well as spiders and scorpions. The powerful beak allows it not to be harmed when foraging.
▼ Spoonbills
▲ Spoonbills have a unique feeding method in the water
Spoonbills feed mainly on shrimp, crabs, aquatic insects, insect larvae, worms, crustaceans, mollusks, frogs, tadpoles, lizards, small fish and other small vertebrates and invertebrates, and occasionally eat small amounts of plant food. Don't think the shape of the heron's beak is strange. Spoonbills forage foreground instead of preying directly on visible food through their eyes, they walk in the shallow waters of the water's edge, opening their mouths and sweeping back and forth in the water, like a semicircular scythe cutting grass back and forth from side to side. The mouth is usually open 5 cm, and the tip of the mouth touches the bottom of the water, and it can be caught when it touches the catch. Sometimes even put the mouth aside, dragging the mouth quickly to run for food.
▼Black scissor-billed gull
▲ The black-billed gull is the only bird in the world with a lower beak longer than the upper beak
They forage close to the surface of the water, with their beaks on the surface of the water, and divide their lower beaks into the water to divide the water, thus feeding food into their mouths.
▼Red-billed finch
▲ The crossed beak of the red-billed finch can easily break the pine nuts
The red-billed finch is mainly larch seeds, which are eaten upside down and open pine nuts with their cross-billed sparrows. It inhabits a variety of forest types in the cold-tempered coniferous zone. He prefers to live in fish-scale spruce to stink fir forests and yellow-flowered larch-birch forests. Often wander in groups.
▼Long-billed sandpiper
▲ The slender beak of the long-billed sandpiper can easily detect the location of worms in the dirt
The long-billed sandpiper's beak is long and straight. It resembles a flappy sandpiper but is small, with a nasal groove that is much longer than 1/2 of the upper mouth. Often alone or in small groups. He enjoys activities and foraging in small ponds, swampy edges and tidal areas. It feeds mainly on crustaceans, molluscs, worms, insects and insect larvae, but also pecks at small fish and frogs. When foraging, they often insert their mouths deep into the mud.
▼Toucan with a tufted tufted tongue
▲ The unique beak of the tufted-tongued toucan
The large, ornate beak of the tufted tongue toucan does not appear as heavy as all toucans and is not suitable for flight. The rim of the toucan with a tufted tongue is generally serrated , with a black or ivory appearance that looks a bit like teeth. Although the bird's beak is large, it weighs less than 30 grams. The structure of the mouth bone is very special, it is not a dense body, the outside is a shell, running through the middle of the very fine fibers, porous sponge-like tissue, filled with air, therefore, it does not feel the slightest heavy pressure. The tooth-like protrusions of the maxilla of the collared tongue toucan can help forage for fruit.
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