Hi, my name is Steve Bush.
I take care of birds for a living, including these Lorikeets.
They're a type of parrot native to Australia, and they eat nectar from flowers.
So I'm offering them some simulated flower nectar.
There are a surprising number of birds that drink flower nectar, and they can teach us
something cool about all animals.
Let's examine some sweet birds!
Lorikeets
Lorikeets are parrots, but unlike most parrots, their primary diet is nectar from flowers.
On the outside, they look like normal parrots with a hooked beak.
But here is a normal parrot tongue, and here is a Lorikeet tongue.
See all the bristles?
When Lorikeets drink, they stick out their tongues and spread out these bristles.
Nectar travels up the bristles and is held by capillary action.
Kind of like a paintbrush.
Nectar is REALLY sweet.
Like 20 to 30 percent sugar.
For sweetness, we're talking somewhere between ice cream and fudge.
So Lorikeets have a simplified digestive system.
Their muscular stomach is reduced in size and strength compared to other birds, because
their food is energy-rich and not hard to digest.
If you have a big bag of candy, you'll quickly discover that sugar is not a complete diet
for us or birds!
Lorikeets also eat pollen to get protein.
Sunbirds
Sunbirds are this really beautiful group of birds ranging from Africa over to Australia.
They are cousins with the Lorikeet, but they're not parrots.
They are songbirds.
But they share a similar diet.
They eat mostly nectar, with bugs supplementing their protein.
Let's look at their tongues.
Check this out!
There are lots of bristles.
And we know that bristles act like a paintbrush to collect and hold nectar.
The tongues are shaped differently, the birds are different in many other ways, but because
they face the same challenges, they have come up with a similar solution!
This is called convergent evolution.
Two animals that are not related, but share a body shape because they face similar challenges.
Another bird example is the long, curved beak of toucans and hornbills.
They live on different continents, but that beak shape is great for eating fruit.
Or a famous example is the shape of dolphins and the shape of fish.
They are so different in so many ways, but the shape is good for getting through water
easily.
There are more birds that drink nectar, though, and you'll see more convergent evolution in
action!
Honeyeater
Honeycreeper
Flowerpecker
Bananaquit
Hummingbirds
No discussion of nectar-drinking bird would be complete without hummingbirds.
Hummingbirds are distant, distant relatives of lorikeets.
Really distant.
Like, lorikeets are more closely related to falcons than they are to hummingbirds.
But hummingbirds share one crucial trait.
They drink nectar from flowers.
And because they share the same challenges, they share some traits.
Let's look at a hummingbird tongue.
The tongue is long, and split in two fringes.
These tongues have a different way to soak up nectar.
They unfold and form little cups on contact with liquid.
There is a little bit of capillary action, but most of the nectar is scooped up.
I think this is interesting because it shows that the birds don't always reach the same
solution.
There are a lot of similarity in their tongues, but each one is slightly different based on
factors that are unique to each species.
There is a lot of convergence in their evolution, but each one is following its own path.
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