The individual that we spent most of our time with was the male. Males have red eyes and females have white eyes. The best way to do so is to look at their eyes. This, however, is not a sure way to tell them apart. Compared to my recent photographic encounter with New Zealand’s smallest endemic bird, the rifleman (height 8cm and weighing 6g), these two rhinoceros hornbill were something entirely different.īoth sexes have casques, but the males tend to be bigger and more impressive. The birds progressively rub their bill against this gland and gradually produce the glossy red-yellow-orange colouration you can see in our images. Rhinoceros hornbills can reach a height of 1.3m with a wing span of 1.5m and weigh up to 3kg. Again like other hornbills, rhinoceros hornbills secret coloured oils from an oil gland (the uropygial gland). This casque acts as a resonating chamber to amplify the birds calls. Like other hornbills, when they are young, their bills lack colour. This feature atop the birds head is not surprisingly the influence behind their common name. Their casque is a hollow organ composed of keratin (the same stuff our fingernails are made from). Their most striking feature, their casque (the head ornament that looks like a second bill, or rhinoceros horn) is thought to have a similar function to that of hadrosaur’s head crest (these dinosaurs lived ~60 million years ago). The first thing that hit me when seeing both male and female birds was how monstrous and prehistoric they looked. ‘Hornbill!’ they shouted and ran into the clearing. Our guides knew instantly we were in for a treat. In our search for wildlife of all shapes and sizes, we stumbled upon a clearing from which a deep echoing, ‘hoooonk hooonk’ descended from the 50ft canopy. During our short and frenzied intermission between flights from New Zealand to England, we boarded a 4×4 and set off into Endau Rompin National Park, Malaysia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |