One of the 8 hornbills on WAnimals
Birds · Bucerotiformes · Bucerotidae
Helmeted Hornbill
Rhinoplax vigil
Critically Endangered
At extremely high risk of imminent extinction in the wild.
The helmeted hornbill is the only hornbill in the world with a solid rather than hollow casque: a block of keratin that makes up as much as 11% of its body weight. The males use it in aerial jousts, colliding head-on in mid-flight. That density has been its undoing: so-called hornbill ivory is carved and traded illegally, and over the past decade the species has suffered a brutal collapse that has taken it from near threatened to critically endangered.
Weight
2.6 kg – 3.1 kg
Size
1.1 m – 1.2 m
Life expectancy
35 years
