Beak Holds Multiple Fish Simultaneously

photograph of a puffin standing on a rock

Biological Strategy

Atlantic puffin

AskNature Team

Image: Ray Hennessy / Unsplash / Free non-commercial use

Move in/on Liquids

Water is not only the most abundant liquid on earth, but it’s vital to life–so it’s no surprise that the majority of life has evolved to thrive on and under its surface. Moving efficiently in and on this dense and dynamic substance presents unique challenges and opportunities for living systems. As a result, they have evolved countless solutions to optimize drag, utilize surface tension, fine tune buoyancy, and take advantage of various types of currents and fluid dynamics. For example, sharks can slide through water by reducing drag due to their streamlined shape and specially shaped features on their skin.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Organisms

Many living systems must secure organisms for food. But just as one living system must capture its prey to survive, its prey must escape to survive. This results in capture and avoidance strategies that include trickery, speed, poisons, constructed traps, and more. For example, a carnivorous plant called the pitcher plant has leaves formed into a tube that collect water. Long, slippery hairs within the tube face downward. When insects enter the tube seeking nectar, they lose their footing and slide inside, unable to climb out and escape being eaten and digested by the plant.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Solids

Some living systems must secure solid particles such as sediment, usually to keep the particles from hindering their health or activity. The most common way in which they do this is through filtering. To be effective, a filtering system must be appropriate to the sizes of solid particles to be captured and must capture only what is needed. It must also be effective in the appropriate media–air, water, or sometimes solids like soil. An example is mangroves, which are trees that grow along ocean coasts. Their root system slows down and settles sediment out of the water, building up soil to support the mangrove ecosystem.

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Birds

Class Aves (“bird”): Eagles, hawks, sparrows, parrots

Birds are evolutionary engineering marvels. They are descended from dinosaurs, but are far from our idea of heavy, scaly reptiles. Of the specific adaptions that set them apart, most notable is flight—although some mammals can fly, birds take the prize for abundance in the skies. Many birds have hollow, lightweight skeletons and specially-designed wings to help them stay aloft. They also have feathers made of keratin that help them stay warm, attract mates, and improve navigation and aerodynamics in flight. In contrast to their dinosaur ancestors, they lack true teeth and have replaced them with specialized beaks and bills.

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The beak of the puffin can carry numerous fish due to the structure of its jaw and serrations on the inside of its mouth.

In order to find food, puffins dive into the ocean and grasp fish between their jaws before flying away. When searching for a meal, puffins have to choose between a single large fish or multiple smaller fish. Larger fish can be difficult to hold because puffins grasp a fish around its gills, leaving the fish dangling to one side of the mouth, making it difficult to fly. Instead, puffins make numerous short, shallow dives to catch large numbers of small fish. Because each trip takes energy, it is important to maximize the number of fish the puffin can carry each time.

The jaws of the puffin enable it to carry multiple small fish simultaneously. While the jaws of many other birds are hinged at one point, the puffin’s beak has a flexible hinge, allowing it to control the degree to which its mouth opens. In addition, the upper and lower jaws of the puffin are joined together with a soft and stretchy piece of flesh known as a “rosette”, which allows the puffin to open its mouth even wider than the average bird. The inside of the upper jaw is also textured with a series of “spines” known as denticles, which point back towards the throat. The puffin can hold its prey against the denticles with its strong tongue, and can continue hunting for more prey while holding its previous catch in place.

Puffins on average carry around 10 fish at a time, but have also been sighted carrying up to 60 fish simultaneously.

This strategy was contributed by Anne-Marie Daniel & Michelle Fehler.

Image: Darragh Sherwin /

Atlantic puffin holding a beak full of squirming food.

Image: Tomi / Wikimedia Commons /

Image: Matthias Meckel / Wikimedia Commons /

Eine Gruppe Papageitaucher, einer mit ausgebreiteten Fluegeln (aufgenommen bei den Farne Inseln, England) - A group of puffins, one with spread wings (photo taken n. Farne Islands, England)

Image: Wikimedia Commons /

Digimax A50 / KENOX Q2

Image: Henning Allmers, [email protected] / Wikimedia Commons /

Last Updated July 14, 2017

References

“These puffins sport beaks that look as if they have been painted for a carnival…It is able to carry as many as 20 fish in its beak by holding them with its tongue against the serrated upper mandible.” (Foy and Oxford Scientific Films 1982:150)

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