Toucan Sam, that bird with the horn-shaped, rainbow-striped bill on the Froot Loops cereal box, made the toucan recognizable to generations of people who have never even been to the neotropics. The toucan's undeniable graphic appeal led to its dramatic profile gracing advertisements decades before Toucan Sam began following his nose. Toucans have been used to promote everything from Guinness beer in the 1930s to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in the 1980s. Toucans are a group of social birds native to Central and South America. They spend their days doing what any good frugivore (or fruit-eater) does: dispersing the seeds of the trees whose fruits they eat.

Source: How Stuff Works