The helmeted hornbill

[mia]

Farwell beautiful dinosaur.
Such a majestic creature!

Link to tweet

[3Hotdogs]

1. Bronx Zoo has one.

Sadly, not as nice to see as in this video.

[nam78_two]

2. Very sad

From Wikipedia...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmeted_hornbill

After ongoing hunting pressure and habitat loss, the helmeted hornbill was uplisted from near threatened to critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2015. It is listed in Appendix I of CITES. According to the conservation group TRAFFIC, 2,170 casques were confiscated in just three years in China and Indonesia alone.[8] There are fewer than 100 birds remaining in Thai forests. At least 546 hornbill parts, mostly casques of helmeted hornbills, have been posted for sale on Thai Facebook in the past five years. Traders will pay villagers 5,000-6,000 baht (US$165–200) for a hornbill head. Prices double or triple in cities and increase exponentially when sold overseas.[9]

[cab67]

3. those helmets are surprisingly fragile.

I don't remember what hornbill species this was. It was an Asian species, though not necessarily the helmeted hornbill. (It's probably an oriental pied hornbill - it's common throughout the region.)

The crest is comprised of very lightweight spongy bone that wears away very quickly.


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[cab67]

4. here are some live hornbills.

I've never gotten a good photo of the oriental pied hornbill, which I've seen in Thailand and off Singapore, so here are some African forms -


casqued hornbill, botanical gardens, Entebbe, Uganda -

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crowned hornbill, botanical gardens, Entebbe, Uganda -

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Abyssinian ground hornbill, Murchison Falls NP, Uganda -

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southern ground hornbill, Maasai Mara NP, Kenya -

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not a great shot, but - pair of Jackson's hornbills, Lake Bogoria, Kenya -

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