Long Beak Helps a Toucan Keep It Cool (via NY Times)
It consists of a bony core with a horny covering called the ramphotheca. Between the two there is a network of blood vessels. The researchers suggest that this arrangement makes it an ideal radiator, with blood as the coolant….
The experimental setup was quite simple, Dr. Andrade said. They put birds in a temperature-controlled chamber and monitored them with a thermal imaging camera to measure temperatures on the bill surface. They found that below an ambient temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the bill was relatively cold, indicating that the blood vessels to it were constricted. But above that temperature blood flow to the bill increased.
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