[00:01.89]This bird's beak is perfect for sipping nectar from tubular flowers.
[00:08.58]It's an 'I'iwi...
[00:11.76]a long-billed honey creeper only found in Hawaii.
[00:14.79]But when blown to these shores four million years ago,400
[00:17.84]its ancestors looked very different.
[00:23.20]Those first Hawaiian honey creepers were finch-like,
[00:26.09]with short bills, perhaps quite similar to this modern honey creeper, the palila.
[00:30.27]Its stout bill is perfect for ripping open tough seed pods.
[00:36.59]But once here, the honey creepers made the most of it,
[00:39.93]evolving into a variety of birds with some very distinctive bills.
[00:47.91]The Maui parrotbill has a strong, hooked beak
[00:51.50]for getting at the grubs inside dead wood.
[01:07.74]And then there's the 'akiapola'au,
[01:10.15]with one of the most remarkable beaks of any bird.
[01:16.07]Its lower mandible is straight and chisel-like
[01:18.67]and can puncture the bark to drink the sap...
[01:23.45]..while its upper mandible is long and curved for winkling out grubs.
[01:28.56]It's as close as a bill gets to a Swiss Army penknife.
[01:32.36]