Toucans

Toucan is the current common name for a small group of medium sized birds with huge beaks. They are "supposed" to represent only the South American birds from the Ramphastidae family. However, "toucan" has also been used to refer to hornbills as late as 1982 (from what I can tell).  This has been done by mistake, such as portraying a great hornbill as a South American bird, or seemingly intentionally when listing birds that an African tribe does or does not eat. They have also been called bill-birds in the past due to their enormous bill (beak); or [Brazilian] pies (not sure how to pronounce that) from their taxonomic classification in the order Picae.

Monsters in fiction derived from toucans may also be called such, like all one-word common names. Toucannon is very clearly a toucan both in name and appearence. Many fans joke that it's enormously angry over its ginormous bill, which was smaller in its previous evolution, Pikipek (also in Picae). Speaking of, at least around the 1850s, it was noted that a non-naturalist would assume that hummingbirds and toucans were in the same family due to their long bills. I'm not so sure people would think such a thing now, but I could be wrong.

Toucans are not the most popular bird, but many kids learn about them from an early age. However, like other South American animals, most non-Hispanic American children in my day learned about them either from sources like cartoons or animal fact books, or from Froot Loops. That is a cereal brand in which the mascot is Toucan Sam, whose beak is colored with both yellow and black as well as the original colors of the cereal rings (pink, orange, and yellow). He is light blue, and it's possible that Zazu, a hornbill, was based off of his design. Some kids would undoubtedly know the difference (and most kids didn't know what kind of animal Zazu was, but it wouldn't surprise me if some thought he was a toucan). Toucans are not as famous as more popular animals like lions or dogs. While children's picture books show a plethora of animals, non-documentary television for all ages and novels do not often feature toucans. Thus, I put them on the second section of my classifier scale.

Despite some toucan species having brightly colored beaks of numerous colors, the most famous toucan is the most boring looking, the Toco Toucan. Perhaps it reminds people of penguins, but that's speculation on my part. Toucans are commonly associated with the rainforest they live in and are often depicted surrounded by jungle leaves.

Scientifically speaking, toucans themselves consist of two genuses within the Ramphastidae family: Andigena and Ramphastos. The rest are called toucanets ("small & cute toucans") and aracaris. Ramphastidae variations have been used since Linnaeuses, see those pages for more. I have learned to view toucans and aracaris as distinct, but Wikipedia implies that aracaris are a kind of toucan...which they are, depending on how you use the word. Thus I think you can use toucan as both a bigger name that encompasses regular toucans, toucanets, and aracaris, or acknowledge the scientific classification and only use toucan for actual toucans.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbqs310.9?searchText=toucan&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dtoucan%26acc%3Don&ab\_segments=0%2Fbasic\_search\_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Adc5e2e6165fa5feb88ce8f65df0d1645&seq=2
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20538021?searchText=toucan&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dtoucan%26acc%3Don&ab\_segments=0%2Fbasic\_search\_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae0df9be4f7b675268c4dec6361fce06e
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Piciformes&oldid=1174357275
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Froot\_Loops&oldid=1185657692
5. ↑ https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=toucan%20collage&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=toucan%20collage&sc=6-14&cvid=4CE9D45B9AD0429980BEF89BF62833C9&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&first=1
6. ↑ Memory
7. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List\_of\_toucans&oldid=1185684674