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