The Malabar pied hornbill (''Anthracoceros coronatus''), also known as lesser pied hornbill, is a bird in the hornbill family, a family of tropical

near-passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s found in the Old World.

Taxonomy

The Malabar pied hornbill was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...

in 1780 in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux''. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Martinet engraved the plates for numerous works on natural history, especially ornithology. Notable in particular are those for ''l'Ornithologia, sive Synop ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Univers ...

coined the binomial name ''Buceros coronatus'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The Malabar pied hornbill is now placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Anthracoceros'' that was introduced by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1849. The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

. The generic name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''anthrax'', meaning "coal black" and ''kerōs'', meaning "horn". The specific epithet ''coronatus'' is Latin for "crowned".

Description

The Malabar pied hornbill is a large hornbill, at in length. It has mainly black plumage, apart from its white belly, throat patch, tail sides and trailing edge to the wings. The bill is yellow with a large, mainly black

casque Casque is a French word for helmet. It can refer to: * Casque (anatomy), an enlargement on the beaks of some species of birds, including many hornbills *Hornbill ivory, the casque of the helmeted hornbill, collected as a decorative material * S. C ...

. Females have white orbital skin, which the males lack. Juveniles have no casque. It might be confused with the

oriental pied hornbill The oriental pied hornbill (''Anthracoceros albirostris'') is an Indo-Malayan pied hornbill, a large canopy-dwelling bird belonging to the family Bucerotidae. Two other common names for this species are Sunda pied hornbill (''convexus'') and Mala ...

. They weigh aroung 1kg (2.2 pounds).

Distribution and habitat

The Malabar pied hornbill is a common resident breeder in India and Sri Lanka. Its habitat is evergreen and moist deciduous forests, often near human settlements. It is distributed across three main regions within the Indian sub-continent: Central and Eastern India, along the Western Ghats, and in Sri Lanka. In Central and Eastern India, it ranges from western West Bengal through parts of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, northern and eastern Maharashtra, northern Andhra Pradesh, and north-east tip of Telangana. Along the Western Ghats, the species is distributed in pockets along the eastern slopes and in the Konkan belt and west coast from western Maharashtra through Goa, western Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and in Kerala. In Sri Lanka, the species occurs mainly in the low country and dry zone forests as well as home gardens.

Nature and behaviour

Breeding

During incubation, the female lays two or three white eggs in a tree hole, which is blocked off with a cement made of mud, droppings and fruit pulp. There is only one narrow aperture, just big enough for the male to transfer food to the mother and chicks. When the chicks have grown too large for the mother to fit in the nest with them, she breaks out and rebuilds the wall, after which both parents feed the chicks.

Food and feeding

This species is omnivorous, taking fruits, small mammals, birds, small reptiles, insects etc. Prey is killed and swallowed whole. Figs are an important food, contributing 60% of their diet from May to February, the non-breeding season; during breeding, in March and April, up to 75% of the fruits delivered at the nest were figs. They also feed on other fruits, including those of the ''

Strychnos nux-vomica ''Strychnos nux-vomica'', the strychnine tree, also known as nux vomica, poison fruit, semen strychnos, and quaker buttons, is a deciduous tree native to India and to southeast Asia. It is a medium-sized tree in the family Loganiaceae that grow ...

'', which are toxic to many vertebrates. Great pied hornbills and Malabar pied hornbills are frequently spotted at the township of the

Kaiga Atomic Power Station Kaiga Generating Station is a nuclear power generating station situated at Kaiga, near the river Kali, in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India. The plant has been in operation since March 2000 and is operated by the Nuclear Power Corpo ...

near Karwar. The rich biodiversity in the forest around the plant has become a niche for a wide variety of rare bird species. A study comparing populations over a 23-year period at

Dandeli Dandeli is a taluk in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, India, in the Malenadu region. Description Old Dandeli As per the 1930 year, the population of Dandeli was only 515 and predominantly worked in the forestry department and governmen ...

found no significant change. In central India, tribal peoples believed that hanging a skull of the hornbill (known as ''dhanchidiya'') brought wealth. " Malabar Pied Hornbill ".jpg, pair

Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary is located at in Uttara Kannada District of Karnataka state in India. The sanctuary covers an area of . around the city of Dandeli. Along with neighboring Anshi National Park (), the sanctuary was declared part of th ...

MalabarPiedHornbill_Dustbath.jpg, dust bathing

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Malabar pied hornbill (Anthracoceros coronatus) female in flight.jpg, female in flight

Yala National Park Yala (යාල) National Park is the most visited and second largest national park in Sri Lanka, bordering the Indian Ocean. The park consists of five blocks, two of which are now open to the public, and also adjoining parks. The blocks have ind ...

, Sri Lanka

References

* ''Birds of India'' by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp,

External links

Oiseaux
Photo {{Taxonbar, from=Q908959

Malabar pied hornbill The Malabar pied hornbill (''Anthracoceros coronatus''), also known as lesser pied hornbill, is a bird in the hornbill family, a family of tropical near-passerine birds found in the Old World. Taxonomy The Malabar pied hornbill was described by ...

Birds of India Birds of Sri Lanka