How Do Pelicans Work?

Pelicans use their huge gular pouch to easily scoop up fish in water but consume only the fish. Learn more about them in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/pelican-bill-vs-belly.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Florin
vogel bomb here. The pelican is the squat peculiar looking
bird you might see sitting on a dock or on
the beach among the sandpipers and seagulls, the one with
the incredibly long bill and huge wingspan. But the most

(00:25):
distinctive feature of this shore bird is what's called its
gooler pouch, which is the loose bag of skin that
descends off the lower side of its bill, and when
the pouch is full, can stretch all the way down
to the bottom of its long neck. This pouch allows
the pelican to engage in a strange form of filter feeding.

(00:45):
The bird can fly low over the water, open and
speak wide, and dip down to scoop up a fish
the way you might catch a guppy in a cup
with a lot of water along with it. A while
making a landing. The googler pouch then lets the water
drain out. The pelican can tip back its head and
swallow just the fish. There are either seven or eight

(01:09):
species of pelican, depending on which researchers you ask. There's
some argument about subspecies, but all pelicans have a similar
awkward appearance. No shade intended. That's a science fact, though
They do vary in their size, color, territory, and behavior.
Some species nest in trees, while others build homes for

(01:30):
themselves on the ground or in rocks. Pelicans can weighs
little as six pounds a bit less than three kilos,
and as much as thirty pounds about thirteen and a
half kilos, and they live on every continent except Antarctica.
Among the pelicans, the winner for sheer bill size is
the Australian pelican. Its bill can be up to a

(01:50):
foot and a half long that's about half a meter.
Pelicans are very social animals, building their nests in colonies.
The brown pelt is unusual because it's the only species
to feed by diving headfirst into the water, which is
called plunge diving. Most other pelicans work together to herd
schools of fish into shallow water. They then dive in

(02:13):
and scoop up the fish, often all together as a group.
Sometimes pelicans will even tag along with other types of birds,
tracking their prey in the water, and then steal the
fish right out from under them. But it's all fair
in fishery. Pelicans themselves are victims of piracy. On occasion,
it can take a few seconds for a pelican to

(02:34):
drain all that water out of its pouch, during which
time a seagull, often standing on the pelican's head and
pecking at it as a distraction, will dart into its
open bill and steal the fish. Pelicans are part of
the order Pelicanniforms, which includes around fifty species of water birds.
These birds are distinguished from other orders by their forewhebbed toes,

(02:57):
the fact that they breathe through their mouths instead of
nail or nostrils, and their tendency to feed on marine animals.
And then, of course there's that gooler skin. Though pelicans
are the only birds with such a huge pouch that
it can use it to catch meals, other members of
the order, like the great frigate bird, can puff their

(03:17):
gooler skin up with air during courtship displays. Pelican's lower mandible,
that is the bottom half of its bill, is basically
just a frame around that pouch. By bending its neck,
it can even turn its pouch inside out. Another unique
feature is the hook at the tip of the pelican's
upper mandible. The top half of its bill, which helps

(03:40):
grab onto particularly slippery or wiggly fish. Here's how it works.
After locating and scooping up its prey, the pelican opens
its bill and slowly contracts its pouch to empty out
the water while keeping the fish inside. Then, with a
jerk of the bird's head, the fish slides down the hat.

(04:00):
If a fish is particularly large, the pelican might manipulate
it so the fish goes down head first, which helps
prevent it from getting stuck. A pelican can't eat or
fly away if its pouch is still full of water,
so that draining process is very important. Okay, can that
beak and its pouch really hold more than a pelican's stomach?

(04:24):
There's a reason we ask this question. There was a
limerick written by humorist Dixon linear Merit in nineteen ten
that goes, oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican. His
bill holds more than his pelican. He can take in
his beak enough food for a week. But I'm darned
if I know how the helican and the limerick is
partially accurate. A pelican's bill does have a larger capacity

(04:49):
than its stomach. Its stomach can hold up to about
a gallon just under four liters, while its pouch can
hold up to about three gallons or elevenish leaders. But
wh well a pelican might technically be able to take
enough food in its bill for a week, it doesn't
store food there, so what is on the menu. While

(05:11):
most pelicans eat fish exclusively, they can be opportunistic eaters
of lizards, frogs, crabs, and lobsters. Pelicans have even been
observed eating smaller birds, sometimes scooping up water in order
to drown them before swallowing back. In two thousand and six,
a photographer in London's Saint James Park recorded an extraordinary site.

(05:34):
Of the five pelicans living in the park were fed
a diet of fish, but apparently that wasn't enough for
one of them. A pelican picked up a pigeon from
the sidewalk and swallowed it, to the shock and amazement
of park visitors. Since the incident, other people have claimed
to see the Saint James Park pelicans eating pigeons. A
representative for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

(05:56):
so that this behavior was highly unusual and likely attributed
to the bird's contact with people and its more urban environment.
There is, however, other photographic evidence of pelicans trying any
number of unusual meals out for size, attempting to stretch
their beaks around everything from cats and dogs to cows

(06:18):
and capaberas to bear cubs and giraffes, though the pelican's
photographed seem to have succeeded only in mildly annoying the
potential meals in question. Aside from catching or annoying their
potential prey, pelicans use their bill for other things. During courtship,

(06:39):
male pelicans often stretch out and flap their pouches and
clap their bills. They may also lash out at rivals
and other threatening animals with that sharp hook at the
end of the bill. Baby chicks are fed by both parents,
who regurgitate partially digested fish for them to eat. Chicks
that are old enough to eat whole fish but not

(06:59):
yet ready to hunt may be seen fishing for dinner
inside their parents' pouches, and pelicans that live in warm
climates sometimes open their bills and flap their pouches in
order to cool down. Fossil records show that pelicans have
been around in more or less the same form for
over forty million years, so regardless of how weird the

(07:21):
pouch might seem to us, it served the birds well.
Some species are currently listed as threatened, but with the
continued efforts of conservationists, hopefully pelicans will be around for
a long time more and continue to amaze and intrigue us,
especially if they mostly lay off snacking on pigeons and bears.

(07:47):
Today's episode is based on the article does a Pelican's
bill hold more than its belly can? On how stuffworks
dot Com, written by Shanna Freeman. Brain Stuff is production
by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com
and is produced by Tyler Klang. Before more podcasts my
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