Hornbill is the name of over 40 species of medium-sized to large birds with huge, often colorful, bills. Hornbills are found in tropical Africa and Asia. They eat fruit, insects, reptiles, and small mammals. Hornbills use their clumsy-looking bills with great skill when eating. For example, the bird holds poisonous snakes at the tip of the bill, away from the face, and rolls the snake back and forth through the tip until it is crushed.
Hornbills have unusual nesting habits. In all but two species, the female lays one to five eggs within a cavity in a hollow tree. The female then imprisons herself and her eggs inside the nest chamber by blocking the entrance hole with a cementlike wall built from mud. The male passes food to the female through a narrow slit in the wall. In some species, the female remains walled in the nest for over 100 days until she and her grown young burst free. Hornbill nests are relatively safe from most predators.
Loading the player...Rhinoceros hornbill
