Card #051 · Birds
Southern ground hornbill
Bucorvus leadbeateri
Rare VU · Vulnerable
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Bucerotiformes · Family Bucerotidae
- Range
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Size
- 90–129 cm (3–4 ft)
- Weight
- 3.5–6.2 kg (8–14 lb)
- Lifespan
- 50–60 yrs (wild)
- Diet
- Carnivore
Most Notable
Among the slowest-breeding birds on Earth: a whole family group may defend 100 square kilometres yet raise only a single chick to independence about once every three years.
At dawn the male inflates the balloon of bare red skin at its throat and pumps out a deep, booming call, a series of low grunts so resonant that it is often mistaken for a distant lion and can carry up to 3 km across the savanna.
It breeds as a cooperative group: a dominant pair is helped to raise young by several non-breeding birds, usually their own grown offspring from past years.
A female may lay two eggs, but only the first-hatched chick is ever raised; the second almost always dies, part of why the species reproduces so slowly.
Ground hornbills can live 50 to 60 years in the wild, spending their days striding across the grass hunting insects, snakes, frogs, and small mammals rather than flying.
Range: Savanna and woodland of eastern and southern Africa.