How Birds Got (And Kept) Their Beaks
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Birds are known for having beaks, however at what point between being a humongous therapod and tiny sparrow did they get them, and why?
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Did not expect to be learning about the birds and the beaks today.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
It’s about how birds get and keep an... beak
I hate how much I like this.
You win the Internet.
I did. I learn about birds and beaks everyday!
"Ugh! He eats like a pig."
"Nah, pigs tend to chew. I'd say he eats more like a duck."
.9..
@that_marc_guy: "Well, some sort of barnyard animal."
Birds eating intestines is not pretty.
Their beaks make them unable to munch intestines so they have to suck it like spaghetti.
They suck metres of intestines in seconds but they usually higher their heads to do so, unlike humans that suck things with our heads straight.
@@sailor5853 that's disgusting thanks
@@sailor5853: Are we talking about scavenging of intestines, or predating on worms and slugs?
Birds may be born toothless, but the geese that frequent my ponds have very definitely sharp looking, interlocking serrations in their upper and lower beaks, or bills, towards the rear that kind of resemble a row of sharp teeth.
I didn't even know geese had teeth until I got bitten by one a year ago
it does hurt but it's more of a pinching feeling
..so do chickens
@@moonstone6133 Oh yeah, they can get mean and nasty at times.
the crazy thing is that geese have teeth on their tongue....
Of course they aren't actually teeth, but they sure look and function like them.
Just googled pictures of geese, f'ing terrifying, don't look it up, you'll regret it
This feels like it should be an episode of Eons
They did address something similar, I think the episode was called "when birds had teeth." They didn't mention most of the stuff in this video (except the bit about teeth being replaced by gizzards, but they also talked about how not having teeth might have helped baby birds develop faster), but this was just a quick fast facts type of video and since Eons already did something similar I figure they don't wanna revisit the same topic too many times.
@@waxwinged_hound Ah yes, the well known work of King Gizzard the Lizard Wizard
@@a_e_hilton Thank you.
I think one of the base reasons for toothlessness in birds is that it helped enable ancestral birds transition for meat eating to herbivory. It was actually fairly common within many dinosaur lineages with a carnivorous ancestry to lose teeth to adapt to more plant-based diets since they had no tooth specialization like mammals do. A toothless rostrum is better at grabbing seeds and fruit-like bodies than pointy teeth, but rear teeth were retained within many Cretaceous birds to allow omnivory or a return to carnivory if need be, but toothless birds survived the K-PG Extinction much more successfully than toothed birds due to less reliance on meat and those survivors radiated into toothless modern birds, even if they returned to being carnivores.
I feel like this man has an impressive flannel shirt collection.
@jeff kraus: It's almost as impressive as Mark Rosewater's.
Okay but imagining a beak full of teeth, while a logical middle step, is kind of terrifying
harmonicaveronica
Imagine a bird smiling with teeth, that’s quite uncanny.
The animal you're looking for is a goose essentially
Look at a goose. Or look down the gullet of a penguin.
Pleasant dreams.
I think they actually stopped that gene sequence in some chickens and they were born with raptor-like beaks with teeth.
@@jadeasereht4638sounds made up, can't find it on google
I've always been curious how beaks evolved so many times in so many different reptile families.
You missed one interesting fact: Newly hatched chickens have a single tiny tooth at the tips of their beaks so they can break their eggshells
The real question here is how octopuses got their beaks.
The same way the Sarlacc got theirs.
Modified part of the radula for breaking shells? Thats my guess
They are probably pretty common on Mars.
Carefully
They are mollusks, and their beaks were originally shells! They are essentially inside-out bivalves :)
HANK GREEN : Executive Producer / Host / Camera Operator. goddamit.
That's home office for ya.
Limusaurus is a really cool example of what we think is the middle of the evolution of a beak; babies have a full set of teeth, but lose them by the time they reach full size.
OK... how did squid and octopi get their beaks? We're they a gift from Chutulu?
Sea urchins too
Everytime I re-learn what a gizzard is I'm always disgusted.
But damn delicious.
Same. And it also always reminds me of the band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, which, admittedly, is not a bad thing.
Needed some biology and this...fit the bill. LOL
I'll show myself out
I never thought about how birds can move top and bottom of their jaw before. That's bonkers
SciShow: beak as a surrogate hand
Me: a hand with a mouth in the middle on a bird
Beaks have always fascinated me. It's their faces grew fingernails that somehow turned into mouths.
0:11 AND OCTOPI!!!!! octopi have beaks!!!! and squids too #nowyoureasquid #nowyoureakid
This is on birds, not all animals that have beaks.
CrispR the crap out of birds
We need all the info
Thats so great and informative. Love you SciShow
It’s similar to how the elephant got its trunk, which, is, as we all know, that it was drinking at the river one day when a crocodile came and bit it’s nose and wouldn’t let go, so the elephant pulled and pulled, and eventually after a long (in every sense of the word) struggler the crocodile let go leaving it’s prey as we see it today
Anybody else think Hank's gesticulations are extra wild today? He's really throwing those hands around and I can't take my eyes off them.
Would love to see a video about how flight happened... I get evolution but the process of developing wings (which until you can fly/glide don't seem like an advantage) and whatever encouraged animals to decide to jump off things to move around seems really unusual and interesting.
very useful and provocative, thank you!
Birds so fascinating with the ways they have evolved.
Im glad to see you guys can get about as many views in the about the same amount of time, as Demolition Ranch with a video about shooting watermelons, with a video about bird's beaks.
What do you give a sick bird?
Tweetment.
@Everything Science: What's the difference between unlawful and illegal?
Unlawful is against the law, while illegal is a sick bird.
*Everything Science:* What do you give a sick bird? A quack's office bill.
1:04 to 1:16 quite poetic, it's great. 😁
I gotta stop thumbs upping before Hank finishes saying Thanks for Supporting Sci Show.... ah, never mind, it always ends up being a thumbs up.
There a loads of parrot, raven and other bird videos on you tube, they do many amazing things with those beaks and remarkable feats with their feet.
I love Brilliant.org ...oh ya and SciSho too
Just remember that dinosaurs evolved from their super sharp and bone breaking jaws to beaks just to peck things
This channel always has great stuff.
I recall a study done a number of years ago where scientists made some changes into a chicken embryo and wound up with a chicken that had a beak WITH teeth!
this should be on PBS Eons....
How scarce ARE hens teeth? My grandmother never said.
OMG I’m freaking out!!! I tried to find a UA-cam video about this this week!!! I’m so happy you made this video!!
Ok
I loved this video.
Birds do develop teeth they use in hatching. These teeth are usually lost or re-absorbed after hatching, although some birds lose the teeth *before* hatching. So a gene is enabled long enough to create 1-2 teeth, and another(?) gene is enabled during/before hatching to start the process of de-structuring the teeth afterwards. So it shouldn't be surprising to see teeth being lost earlier and earlier as we reach more modern birds.
"Me want to know why town is called Twin Beaks."
Agent Cookie
Thank you
Amazing. What about the trait of births where the head is moved in jerks so they can see more accurately. Did the evolve after dinasaurs or was it picked it later?
Listening to a millionaire teach me abt why birds have beaks is my jam 🐦💜🥺this is why I love the green bros
Neat! Thanks for uploading!
World : buring in background
Me : I like big beaks and I cannot lie
You ornithologists can't deny...
Duck Hunt was a different game 100M years ago...
Wait, birds eat nuts (like I love to do). But without teeth, the gizzard does the grinding instead? That seems like a ridiculously difficult job to do. Would love to see the physics of it.
0:38 not to be dramatic but I’d die for that duck
Well, that is rather dramatic.
Keratin based Beaks are very light compared to teeth. This is a very useful modification for flight.
Well, it can be argued they didn't _completely_ lose their teeth, just altered their teeth, what they're made of and where they are.
You ever look at a goose? Their tongues have tooth-like bristles as well as on the beak. And Penguins? Those adorable little flightless birds? Go look down one's throat and see if you'll ever sleep again.
They may not be 100% as-defined-by-science "teeth" but these things are certainly tooth-like.
That explains why my chickens love to eat grit.
thank you for this video
This is the content I need right now
One question regarding bird beaks has perplexed me for years. IE since birds evolved from dinosaurs which were largely toothed, and since most biological traits have exceptions, howcome no exceptions to beaks with birds?
Evolutionary bottle neck I think.
@@michaeldamolsen You beat me to it. The K-Pg extinction allowed the survival of only a few lines of bird that all possessed toothless beaks. All of their descendants share this trait.
I miss you on Eons, Hank.
That bit with the GMO chicks got me thinking, if they could do that large scale somehow, they could make beakless chickens, which would make them easier to raise.
Take a closer look at that beak!
I once heard that one reason to loose teeth was reduce weight, but if the alternative is eating stones, sounds unlikely
they’d only have to eat small bits of gravel every time they eat something while teeth are permanently locked into place. so I think weight-wise its still beneficial
When initially describing the ancestor of birds, a picture of a hadrosaur was used. Why? Hadrosaurs aren't the ancestors of birds.
Guess the expression “when chicken have teeth” lost a bit of it’s meaning
I've never heard that before - what does it mean?
@@jakobraahauge7299 it means that something will never happen edit: it's a french expression
@@ben5056 the English equivalent to that specific idiom is "yes, when pigs fly."
The Animal Wonders cameo.
Premaxillae is such a cute baby name
Sci Show: “ancestors of birds...”. Shows Late Cretaceous dinosaur🙄
Wait wait wait... turtle has beak? Super mario finally makes a bit more sense
Eggcellent research! Truly ground-beaking! You clearly didn't wing it on this vid.
I'm going to pretend I hate this because this comment is public, but I will also anonymously give the comment a like of punster solidarity.
Can you make a video on why birds have their legs? It is completely different from their dinosaur ancestors.
SOMEONE CLIP THAT FINGER WAGGING lol it is great!!! We need the .gif!!
No
As a kid I pointed out the similarities between birds and reptiles (we went on a school trip to the natural history museum and the skeletons baffled me) and all the other kids made fun of me 😭 six year old me would be feeling very vindicated right now
I vibe with birds
I wanna know how that chicken looked like at 1:18
To beak or not to beak? That is the question.
It's weird to comment on clothing on a science channel, but man, that is a good looking shirt.
Now im going to watch that Toucan channel for 2 hours
Any Ark fans cringe with dread when he mentioned ichthyornis? Yet here i am captivated.
Hope this comment doesn't get lost, but I was wondering where to find your Discord. You keep mentioning it but I can't find a link to it on neither here, your Facebook or Twitter accounts... Is it only for private/patreon members?
Other birds (particularly carrion birds) developed some of the strongest stomach acid of any animals.
I used to study guinea pigs...until I got addicted to WHEEK...(and now I said it...) WHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEKWHEEK
Could be more complete on some fundamentals - for instance, which non bird animals have beaks? (Beyond turtles)
SciShow: "This cool dino bird helped with this research, it's called the ichthyornis--"
Me: ** war flashbacks of losing stacks of taming supplies on ARK **
Imagine a toucan without its beak.
Toucan't
That's what Oscar the Grouch is.
4:00 Tortoise also don't have teeth...
Be-beaked.
This birdnerd is pleased with today's video 😍
Ok
2:20 - Wait... is that a Crocoduck?
Because simply put, the bird is the word
next we need to know how cephalopods got theirs
Does the added weight of the gizzard's pebbles, etc. make up for the weight lost due to lighter bones? Were teeth really that much heavier than carrying rocks around all the time?
Hey, a shoutout for Kansas. Hello from here. 🖖
Its mainly examples of extreme optimization that worked. That also became parts of the refining hole. Like humans with the neanderthal looking toward physical specialization and our social specialization. So with birds and there beaks to there brethren. Which in my opinion the beaks worked for them.
Beaks are so weird, when you think about it. Love m
I was just asking this question yesterday when i saw a toucay. Why are their beaks so wierd its like they've got a disease that makes its beak swell up. I mean they eat the same thing as other birds bit their beaks look normal. Still like though
toucan beaks might be to numerous reasons.
like sexual selection what darwin postulated.
ladies maybe like big beaks.
so big beaks would become a norm in the population.
@@spatrk6634 yes but female you toucans also have large beaks
Bird bird bird bird, bird is the word.
Toothless? You mean like pur favourite reptile?
=P
In dinosaurs ornithopods all have beaks and teeth, and in theropods many groups that were also close relatives to birds developed beaks and lost their teeth. Also pterosaurus also developed beaks and lost their teeth during evolution.
Would teeth be too heavy for flight as they got smaller? Similar to bones
Let's change the word bird to birb just cause it sounds funnier
l love birds wow
Platypus would like a word
We can't keep meeting like this, Hank.
Some time soon, we have to have a cup of coffee together.