Bills and tongues of nectar‐feeding birds: A review of morphology, function and performance, with intercontinental comparisons

Abstract

AbstractThe bills and tongues of nectar‐feeding birds differ from continent to continent. The major differences are that: (i) the tongues of A Australian honeyeaters are broader any more fimbricated at the tip than the bifurcated tongues of sunbirds and hummingbirds; (ii) the bills of hummingbirds are more uniformly narrow and taper less markedly towards their tips than those of sun‐birds and honeyeaters; and (iii) bill curvatures are generally greater for sunbirds and honey‐creepers than for hummingbirds. A variety of hummingbirds has straight or even slightly upturned bills, while bills for all sunbirds, honeycreepers and honeyeaters are decurved to some extent. Despite differences in tongue morphology, hummingbirds, sunbirds and honeyeaters extract nectar at a similar range of rates, averaging approximately 40 γL s−1 from ad libitum feeders, and 1–15 γL−1 from flowers. All tongues collect nectar by capillarity, with licking rates of 6–17 s−1. Licking behaviour has been little studied, although speeds of licking respond to changes in sugar concentration and corolla length. The tongues of honeyeaters are broad, and may need to be brush‐tipped in order to allow capillary collection of nectar. Brush‐tipped tongues can cover large surface areas on each lick, and may allow honeyeaters to exploit nectar and honeydew that is thinly spread over large surface areas. Bill lengths of nectarivorous birds are similar in all regions, though species of hummingbird have the shortest and longest bills. Bill lengths largely determine the range of floral lengths that can be legitimately probed. Maximum floral lengths exceed bill lengths, since hummingbirds, sunbirds and honeyeaters protrude their tongues beyond the tips of their bills. Rates of nectar extraction, however, decline rapidly once the floral length exceeds bill length. Decurved bills may have evolved in honeyeaters and sunbirds to enable perching birds to reach flowers at the ends of branches more easily. Consistent differences in bill length between the sexes suggest that males and females may exploit different floral resources or different proportions of the same resources. For honeyeaters and sunbirds, males have longer bills than females, but the reverse is true for many hummingbirds.