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  Profile

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  In flight

Hornbills

Rhinoceros Hornbill

Buceros rhinoceros

• legendary
• 52 km/h
• Vulnerable

National bird of Malaysia. Its upturned orange-and-red casque amplifies duet calls across Borneo rainforest.

Population

Population size not quantified; overall trend decreasing (IUCN/BirdLife: forest-loss modeling suggests ~35-40% decline over three generations/42 years, with hunting pressure likely pushing actual decline higher)

Habitat

Primary lowland and hill tropical rainforest, extending into tall secondary forest, from sea level up to about 1,400 m elevation; occasionally forages in disturbed forest edge and plantations but depends on large tracts of intact forest for nesting

Fun fact

During nesting the female seals herself inside the tree-cavity nest with mud, food, and feces, leaving only a narrow slit through which the male passes food until the chick is ready to fledge; once the chick is fully feathered, the dried mud barrier is broken down.

Range

Sundaic Southeast Asia: southernmost peninsular Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak (Borneo), Brunei, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo) and Java; locally extinct in Singapore

Diet

Diet dominated by fruit (especially figs), supplemented opportunistically with insects, small reptiles, rodents, and smaller birds

Size

0.85 m

Lifespan

35 years