Ramphastos sulfuratus (keel-billed toucan)

Description:

Description: English: Ramphastos sulfuratus Lesson, 1830 - keel-billed toucan (mount, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, USA). The toucans are an odd group of New World tropical to subtropical birds having enormous bills, relative to body size. Toucan bills are brightly colored, very lightweight, strong, and have serrated biting edges. Most species, including the keel-billed toucan shown above, are not sexually dimorphic in body shape, body size, plumage or bill coloration These birds are principally frugivores (fruit eaters). Natural distribution: Central America to central South America Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Aves, Piciformes, Ramphastidae Birds are small to large, warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered, bipedal vertebrates capable of powered flight (although some are secondarily flightless). Many scientists characterize birds as dinosaurs, but this is consequence of the physical structure of evolutionary diagrams. Birds aren’t dinosaurs. They’re birds. The logic & rationale that some use to justify statements such as “birds are dinosaurs” is the same logic & rationale that results in saying “vertebrates are echinoderms”. Well, no one says the latter. No one should say the former, either. However, birds are evolutionarily derived from theropod dinosaurs. Birds first appeared in the Triassic or Jurassic, depending on which avian paleontologist you ask. They inhabit a wide variety of terrestrial and surface marine environments, and exhibit considerable variation in behaviors and diets. Date: 22 July 2006, 15:20:42. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/15578235765/. Author: James St. John.