What Do Toucans Eat? Fruit, Insects, Lizards and Eggs

Fruit: the main food

Toucans are frugivores, or fruit-eaters, and most of their day is spent moving between fruiting trees. They feed mostly high in the canopy and choose ripe, sugary fruit. Common foods include wild figs, the fruits of palms, Cecropia trees and laurels, berries and small drupes, which are fleshy fruits with a single hard seed, like olives or cherries.

The diet changes with the place and the season. In forests where figs are available all year, toucans may eat much the same food month after month. Where fruit is seasonal, they wander to follow it, and in the dry season they also eat flowers and nectar-rich blossoms when fruit is scarce.

Toucans readily feed on cultivated fruit too. Near farms and towns they visit orange, papaya, guava and banana trees, which is one reason some species can live close to people.

Insects, lizards and other animal food

Toucans are opportunists that take animal food when they find it. Insects such as caterpillars, beetles and termites are common, along with spiders. Small vertebrates, including tree frogs and lizards, are seized when they come within reach.

Animal food is especially important in the breeding season. Toucan chicks are fed largely on insects and other protein-rich food in their first days, with the share of fruit growing as they get older.

Nest raiding: eggs and chicks

The long bill is a perfect tool for reaching into the nests of other birds. Toucans regularly take eggs and nestlings from tree holes, cup nests and the hanging nests of caciques and oropendolas. Some smaller birds mob toucans with alarm calls when one approaches, just as they would a hawk.

The toco toucan, the largest species, is a particularly active nest predator. In the Pantanal of Brazil, studies of the endangered hyacinth macaw have found that toco toucans are responsible for a large share of the macaw eggs that are lost. Toco toucans have also been recorded killing the chicks of the buff-necked ibis, nestlings that can weigh around half as much as the toucan itself.

How toucans eat

A toucan picks up food with the very tip of its bill, then quickly flicks its head upward and back. The food is tossed into the air and drops into the throat. This toss is necessary because the toucan’s tongue is very long, thin and flat, with frayed, bristle-like edges, and is not able to move food along the length of the bill.

The serrated edges of the bill help the bird grip slippery fruit and tear pieces from larger fruits. Small fruits are swallowed whole. The flesh is digested quickly, and seeds pass through the gut or are coughed up, often far from where the fruit was picked.

The size of the bill helps the toucan reach fruit at the tips of thin twigs that cannot hold its weight. To learn more about the bill’s other uses, see why do toucans have big beaks?.

Toucans as seed dispersers

Because toucans swallow fruit whole and fly off before passing the seeds, they carry seeds far from the parent tree. This is called seed dispersal, and it helps plants spread into new areas, away from competition with their parents.

Toucans are among the most important seed dispersers in Neotropical forests and savannas. Large-billed birds can swallow bigger seeds than small birds can, so toucans spread the seeds of trees that few other animals can move. One study of the toco toucan estimated that medium-sized seeds were dropped roughly 270–450 m (885–1,475 ft) from the trees they came from.

A striking example comes from the Pantanal. Toco toucans disperse most of the seeds of the manduvi tree, which provides almost all of the nest holes used by hyacinth macaws. So the same toucan that eats many macaw eggs also helps plant the trees the macaws need. Fruit-eating bats play a similar role at night, as explained in what do fruit bats eat?.

Do different toucans eat different foods?

There are more than 40 species of toucans, toucanets and aracaris, found from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. All of them eat mainly fruit, but the details vary. Large species such as the toco toucan and the keel-billed toucan of Central America take larger fruit and more vertebrate prey, while small toucanets and aracaris feed more on small fruits and insects.

Aracaris often forage in noisy groups and may take more animal food than the large toucans. Mountain toucans of the Andes feed in cloud forests, where they eat fruit from trees that grow at high altitude.

Common myths about the toucan diet

Myth: toucans only eat fruit. Fruit is the main food, but toucans are omnivores that also eat insects, small animals, eggs and nestlings.

Myth: the big bill is for cracking nuts. Toucans are not nut-crackers like macaws. Their bills are light and best suited for picking and tossing soft fruit.

Fact: toucans help plant forests. By carrying seeds away from parent trees, toucans help forests regenerate, including on land that was once cleared.