In Brazil, toucan wins 3D printed nipple prosthesis [video]

Tieta, the toucan you can see in the video above, was rescued by IBAMA in March this year at an illegal wildlife fair in Rio de Janeiro, where it could be sold for up to $ 15, 000. She was found in a cardboard box with another larger, very thin, malnourished toucan with no part of its beak. In order to eat, the animal needed to throw pieces of papaya up with the underside of its beak and snap them up in the air, but it did not always hit the crosshairs.

After being treated at the IBAMA screening center, the bird was transferred by the agency to the Free Life Institute so that it could be rehabilitated. The institution's director, Roched Seba, then coordinated a project to give Tieta a new beak. Toucans usually receive beak implants from other birds, but they usually deteriorate very quickly, so it was decided that the toucan's would be printed in 3D.

Volunteers from three universities and other institutions came together to find the right material that was light and sturdy enough not to disrupt the bird's life. A dead toucan's beak served as a template for the project, which was modified to approximate the original Tieta beak shape. The impression took two hours, while the implantation surgery took 40 minutes and was performed in late July.

The prosthesis was painted with black enamel, fixed with screws and sealed with castor bean polymer resin, a technology developed in Brazil. It took Tieta three days to get used to the new prosthesis and now she must spend the rest of her life in an animal sanctuary. In São Paulo, another very similar project implanted just a few days earlier a 3D printed beak on a green toucan. The initiatives did not know of each other's existence.

In Brazil, toucan wins 3D printed nipple prosthesis [video]