Animal | Great Hornbill |
Scientific Name | Buceros bicornis |
Type | Birds |
Diet | Herbivore |
Lifespan | 30 – 50 years |
Size | 0.9 – 1.3 m |
Weight | 2 – 4 kg |
Domain | Eukaryote |
Phylum | Chordata |
Conservation status | Least concern > Near threatened > Vulnerable > Endangered > Critically endangered > Extinct in the wild > Extinct |
Great Hornbills are located in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Countries include China, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Nepal. They can be found in tropical and wet forests.
Since hornbills are herbivores, they eat fruits, generally figs. It’s also possible for them to eat birds, insects, and small reptiles and mammals. When they catch prey, they throw it into the air and catch it in their mouths and eat it.
These birds are quite social as they live with two to forty other hornbills. Typically they are seen in smaller groups but at times they are found in bigger groups at fruit trees. During the day, they mostly scour onwards on trees and branches in search of fruits, insects, and other food in their diet. They can travel very far for food in just a single day. At night, they assemble in communal roosts at the tallest branches with few vegetation.
Great Hornbills can be very vocal and noisy. In a communal roost, they talk with each other using roars, barks, and hoarse grunts that can sound like a dog. These sounds are made with their casque — a bony growth with no purpose — which is how hornbills are named.
Tribal people hunt hornbills because they use the head and beak in charms and beauty, and its flesh is thought to be remedial. It also happens that these animals are shot many times by poachers who mistake the great hornbill for the highly in demand helmeted hornbill.
[…] to the great hornbill, the southern ground hornbill is hunted for medicinal purposes, even though it’s not proven […]
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