Toucans are photogenic and popular logo images around the world

 

Toucans as logos

Even one of the logos of the SDCC blog (associated with the world-class mammoth ComicCon expo) is a toucan (a generic toucan, www.comic-con.org/toucan/maggies-world-021-timing).

You Can, Toucan logo is seemingly virtually an entire flock of toucans. Guinness started its toucan logo bird circa 1935. Toucan Sam was much later, circa 1963. There are so many toucan logos it’s amazing. The toucan logos come in every style, shape, and color.

Considering that the toucan can be carnivorous it is unclear whether a cereal company was aware of the toucan propensity to eat other animals (in other words the toucan is omnivorous; it eats fruits much of the time but when the opportunity presents itself, the toucan eats raw meat!).  You can learn this on any zoological web site or any ornithological book on toucans.

 

Toucan as a name for companies

There are so many companies named toucan it is unrealistic to even begin to count them:

Toucan Maps (Ray & Sue-Toucan Maps Inc.)

 

Books and articles on toucans of Mesoamerica

Most books tend to feature the toucans of Brazil, which are additional species. Our bibliography is focused on toucans of Mesoamerica but since the ones in Brazil are shown more often, we also include sample books and articles on toucans from Costa Rica down through South America including and going past Brazil.

 

  • GOULD, John
  • 1992
  • A monograph of the Ramphastidae, or family of toucans. JARI-Companhia Florestal Monte Dourado. 160 pages.
  • Short, Lester and Jennifer Horne
  • 2001
  • Toucans, Barbets & Honeyguides.
  • SKUTCH, Alexander F.
  • 1971
  •  
  • Van TYNE, J
  • 1929
  • Life history of the toucan Ramphastos brevicarinatus Univ.
    Michigan Mus. Zool., Misc. Publ. No. 27. 43 pages.
  • WAGNER, H. O.
  • 1944
  • Notes on the life history of the Emerald Toucanet. Wilson, Bull., 56: 65-76.

 

Web sites on birds of pertinent parts of Mesoamerica

http://scolarcardiff.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/illustrating-the-exotic-john-gould-and-edward-lears-family-of-toucans/
The world’s best scientific illustrations (color paintings) of toucans, by Edward Lear.

http://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/lifehistory?p_p_spp=303256
Describes (but does not illustrate) the life history of the toucan.

http://yellow-browedtoucanet.blogspot.com/2010/11/toucans-aulacorhynchus-caeruleogularis.html
Abundant photographs, so a helpful web site.

 

Examples of children’s books on Toucans

 

  • BORGERT-Spaniol, Megan
  • 2014
  • Toucans. Bellwether Media. 24 pages.
  • DUNN, Mary R.
  • 2012
  • Toucans. Capstone Press. 24 pages.
    This, and scores of other books, are sort of “toucans for children.”
    Shows the black-beaked toucan (as is most typical).
  • GUIDONE, Julie
  • 2009
  • Toucans and other Birds. Gareth Stevens Pub., 24 pages.


A few books on the Toucans of South America

  • Ridgely, Robert and Guy Tudor
  • n.d.
  • The Birds of South America, Volumes 1 & 2. Oxford University Press
  • SICK, Helmut
  • 1993
  • Birds in Brazil. Princeton University Press.

 

Books on birds of a country or area of a country,
which should show any and all toucan species in this specific area.

 

  • ALVAREZ del Toro, Miguel
  • 1971
  • Las Aves de Chiapas. 2nd edition. Universidad Autonoma de Chiapas (UNACH). 272 pages.
  • BEAVERS, Randell A.
  • 1992
  • The Birds of Tikal: An Annotated Checklist for Tikal National Park and Peten, Guatemala. Texas A&M University Press. 153 pages.
  • BELETSKY, Les
  • 2006
  • Southern Mexico: The Cancun Region, Yucatan Peninsula, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Travellers' Wildlife Guides, Interlink Pub Group. 487 pages
  • BELETSKY, Les
  • 2010
  • Belize & Northern Guatemala. Travellers’ Wildlife Guides. Interlink Books. 477 pages.
  • CEBALLOS, Gerardo, et al
  • 2009
  • Fauna Mexicana: Esplendor de la Naturaleza. Telmex. 303 pages.

    Photo album; not a book with technical information, but most of the photos are good.
  • CRUZ, Pacheco
  • 1958
  • Diccionario de la fauna yucateca. Merida. 379 pages.
  • DAVIS, L. Irby
  • 1972
  • A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central America. University of Texas Press. 264 pages.
  • EDWARDS, Ernest Preston and Edward Murrell BUTLER
  • 1988
  • A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Adjacent Areas: Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador, Third Edition. University of Texas Press. 292 pages.
  • EISERMANN, Knut and Claudia AVENDA�O
  • 2006
  • Diversidad de aves en Guatemala, con una lista bibliográfica. Pp. 525-623 In: E. Cano (Ed.) Biodiversidad de Guatemala, Vol. 1. Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala.
               
    On Guatemala alone they have found more than 1200 publications on the birds of Guatemala.
  • EISERMANN, Knut and Claudia AVENDA�O
  • 2007
  • Lista Comentada de las Aves de Guatemala/Annotated checklist of the birds of Guatemala. Lynx Edicions. 175 pages.
  • FRENZ, Bert
  • 2012
  • A Birders Guide to Belize. Perfect Paperback. American Birding Association. 374 pages
  • HORWICH, Robert and Jon LYON
  • 1990
  • A Belizean Rain Forest: The Community Baboon Sanctuary. 3rd edition, Orang-utan Press. 420 pages.
  • HOWELL, Steve N. G. and Sophie WEBB
  • 1995
  • A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Oxford University Press. 1010 pages.

    I do not yet have this book (but I am trying to get it). Amazon says it has 1010 pages which is entirely unlikely, but at over 850 pages (that Google Books reveal) this is the largest book on this subject in this area for the last 30 years (that I know of). Most books on birds are meant to be portable handbooks (hence tend to not be very long).
  • JONES, H. Lee
  • 2004
  • Birds of Belize. Corrie Herring Hooks Series, University of Texas Press. 317 pages.
  • KRICHER, John
  • 1999
  • A Neotropical Companion. Princeton University Press. 451 pages.
  • LAND, Hugh C.
  • 1970
  • Birds of Guatemala. Harrowood Books.
  • MARTINEZ G., Milton
  • 2013
  • Aves de Guatemala: Birds of Guatemala (El Quetzal, Trogones y Colibrs) (Volume 1). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 116 pages.
  • MYSKA, Petr
  • 2007
  • Viva Natura: Field Guide to the Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals. Viva Natura. 248 pages.
  • PETERSON, Roger Tory
  • 1999
  • A Field Guide to Mexican Birds: Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador (Peterson Field Guides). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 320 pages
  • SCHLESINGER, Victoria
  • 2001
  • Animals and Plants of the Ancient Maya: A Guide. University of Texas Press. 351 pages.

    E xcellent drawings but noticeably weak on knowledge of which plants and animals were really part of Ancient Maya life and beliefs. The book is well intentioned, but, for a university press, especially a university such as Texas at Austin which has such a decades-long track record in quality university research, this book is a disappointment. However for some animals, the coverage is acceptable, so the author does cover the scarlet macaw acceptably.

    Also the black-and-white line drawings are of better-than-average quality: fully professional drawings. And the creatures she does cover are a good start. But a student (and any iconographer, epigrapher, ethnobotanist, or ethnozoologist) needs more than the incomplete number of species of the Maya civilization.
  • SIBLEY, D. A.
  • 2000
  • The Sibley guide to birds. Knopf. National Audubon Society, New York. 545 pages.

    This covers birds of North America, but is helpful for Guatemala because many birds of North America migrate to Central America.
  • SMITHE, Frank B. and R. A. PAYNTER
  • 1963
  • Birds of Tikal, Guatemala, 1963, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Volume 128, Number 5 : pages 245-324 with 1 plate.    
  • SMITHE, Frank B.
  • 1966
  • The Birds of Tikal. Natural History Press. 350 pages.
  • Van PERLO, BER
  • 2006
  • Birds of Mexico and Central America. Princeton University Press. 336 pages.
  • WHEATLEY, Nigel and David BREWER
  • 2002
  • Where to Watch Birds in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Princeton Field Guides, Princeton University Press. 448 pages.

 

Web sites on birds of pertinent parts of Mesoamerica

http://www.belizeaudubon.org/?page_id=3645

 

www.birdlist.org/belize.htm

 

www.birdlist.org/el_salvador.htm

 

www.birdlist.org/guatemala.htm

 

www.birdlist.org/honduras.htm

 

www.cayaya-birding.com
Good for birds of Guatemala.

 

First posted October 28, 2014.