Bar-pouched Wreathed hornbill
| Wreathed hornbill | |
|---|---|
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| Male in Pakke Tiger Reserve | |
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| Female at Ouwehands Dierenpark | |
Scientific classification 
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| Missing taxonomy template (fix): | Rhyticeros |
| Species: | Template:Taxonomy/RhyticerosR. undulatus
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| Binomial name | |
| Template:Taxonomy/RhyticerosRhyticeros undulatus (Shaw, 1812)
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| Synonyms | |
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Aceros undulatus | |
The Wreathed hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus) is an Old World tropical bird of the hornbill family Bucerotidae, also called bar-pouched wreathed hornbill due to its distinctive blue-black band on its lower throat sac. It is named after its characteristic long, curved bill that develops ridges, or wreaths, on the casque of the upper mandible in adults. Males are black with a rufous crown, a white upper breast and face, and a yellow featherless throat. Females are uniformly black with a blue throat and are slightly smaller than males.
The wreathed hornbill ranges across the foothills and evergreen forests of Northeast India and Bhutan to Bangladesh, Southeast Asia and the Greater Sunda Islands. It is a frugivore and feeds mainly on large fruits, which it swallows whole leaving the seeds intact. This feeding behaviour plays an important ecological role for the long-distance seed dispersal in forest ecosystems.
The wreathed hornbill is threatened by hunting, habitat fragmentation and deforestation. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2018, as the global population is estimated to decrease due to these threats.
Distribution and habitat[edit]
The wreathed hornbill inhabits tropical evergreen forests in the region from southern Bhutan, Northeast India, Bangladesh and through mainland Southeast Asia to Indonesia, where it is restricted to Sumatra, Java, Borneo and a few smaller islands. It has been recorded up to an elevation of 2,560 m (8,400 ft).[1]
In Bhutan, two individuals were sighted in Sarpang district in spring 1986.[2]
In Northeast India, it inhabits unlogged primary forests and selectively logged forests in the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas from Nameri National Park in Assam to Namdapha National Park in Arunachal Pradesh.
During the breeding season, it lives in lowland areas, but migrates to higher elevations in the non-breeding season.
In Myanmar, 62 wreathed hornbills were sighted in the Mali River valley at elevations of 800–2,500 m (2,600–8,200 ft) in winter 1999.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namediucn - ↑ Clements, F. (1992). "Recent records of birds from Bhutan" (PDF). Forktail. 7: 57–73.
