Comments on: Toucan play at reducing the heating bill

By: toucan

toucan — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:40:30 +0000

Amazing adaptation. To imagine that the bird slowly evolved its strange bill through natural selection is really a little awe-inspiring.

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:28:41 +0000

Sauropods with blubbery necks? No, sir, I’m not buying. As shot-through with air pockets as their neck bones were (up to 89%), every ounce counted. Sauropods would have had greater need for cooling than any other creature that ever lived. I wouldn’t be surprised to find they grew those ridiculous necks just for the purpose, or, to say it another way, that it was the cooling by the ridiculous necks and tails that made such hypertrophy conceivable at all.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:41:11 +0000

Fat is an insulator too. Note that the blood vessels in the toucan’s bill or the elephant’s ear have very little separating them from the outside world besides a thin layer of keratin/skin respectively.

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:18:25 +0000

Ed: Sauropods’ necks and tails were insulated?! Are you announcing membership in the All Dinosaurs Were Swathed in Feathers club? ‘Cause last I heard all of the known sauropod skin impressions had them as naked as a newborn narwhal.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:28:23 +0000

Yes quite. You’ll note that neither I nor the researchers are saying that the point of the bill is in heat-radiation *in exclusion of* other hypotheses.

By: Blackbird

Blackbird — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:38:08 +0000

The experiments explain what the beak is useful for *now* but not what it evolved for. Other tropical birds seem to thermoregulate just fine without gigantic colourful beaks. I wouldn’t discard sexual selection and then co-option of the beak for thermoregulation.

By: Arikia

Arikia — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:01:16 +0000

I’m sure this creature is a rarity in the US but…
WANT!!!!!!!!!
Hi Ed Your blog is amazing as always!

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:54:25 +0000

Not sure sauropod tails/necks fit the bill (arf arf). They're certainly big, probably well-suffused with blood vessels, but they're hardly uninsulated. That's one of the criteria that Tattersall cites for a useful radiator. That being said, some tails can be used to give off heat but for entirely different reasons: http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/07/19/ground-squirrels-use-infrared-signals-to-fool-heat-seeking-rattlesnakes

By: Nathan Myers

Nathan Myers — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:13:28 +0000

Has anybody discovered any other use for a rat’s tail?
I wonder the same thing about sauropod tails. And necks.

By: AwesomeRobot

AwesomeRobot — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:20:04 +0000

Heating bill puns eh? Toucan play at that game!