Babali hornbill
| Babali hornbill | ||||||||||||
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Barbali hornbill, the male in front, the female in the back |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Bycanistes albotibialis | ||||||||||||
| ( Cabanis & Reichenow , 1877) |
The white-thighed hornbill ( Bycanistes albotibialis ), also white legs hornbill or white hornbill named ( Bycanistes albotibialis ) is a monotypic bird art within the family of hornbills . The distribution area of this species is in western sub-Saharan Africa . The Babali hornbill has long been classified as a subspecies of the brown- cheeked hornbill ( B. cylidricus ), but treatment as a separate species has now become generally accepted.
The IUCN classifies the Babali hornbill as harmless ( least concern ).
Appearance
The Babali hornbill reaches a body length of 60 to 70 centimeters. The tail feathers account for an average of 24 centimeters in males and 22.2 centimeters in females. The beak in the males is between 14.3 and 17 centimeters long. The beak of the females remains slightly smaller and has a length of 12.1 to 14.3 centimeters. The weight is between 900 and 1411 grams. The male's beak attachment has the shape of an upside-down chopping knife and is a dirty white color, while the significantly smaller part of the female is the same brownish color as the beak.
Appearance of the males
In the male, the head, neck, back and underside of the body are mostly shiny black. The thighs, the rump, the upper and lower tail-coverts and the belly are white. The tail is white with a broad white central band. The outer hand wings and the arm wings are white. The beak is dark brown and the beak tip is cream colored. Compared to the hornbill, the beak attachment is longer, narrower and tapering off. The featherless skin around the eyes is yellow. The eyes are brown, the legs and feet are black.
Appearance of females and fledglings
The female resembles the male in plumage. It is smaller and has a dark brown beak with a light cream-colored beak tip. The beak attachment is significantly smaller than that of the male and is dark in color. The eyes are brown. The legs and feet are black.
Fledglings have a plumage like the adult birds. Their beak, however, is even smaller and pale yellow in color. The beak attachment is missing or only slightly developed. The eyes are gray.
Possible confusion
In the distribution area of the Babali hornbill both the gray-cheeked hornbill and the screech hornbird , belonging to the same genus, occur. The gray-cheeked hornbill is of a similar size. However, the beak attachment is darker, the tail feathers are black with a white tip. The middle pair of tail feathers is black. The hornbill is significantly smaller, has a smaller beak and a barely developed beak attachment.
distribution
The range of the Babali hornbill is in West Africa south of the Sahara. It occurs there in Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, in the north of Angola, in Zaire, in the south of Sudan and in the west of Uganda.
The habitat are primary forests of the lowlands. In Cameroon, however, the skeleton of a Babali hornbill has also been found at an altitude of 4054 meters.
food
Like most hornbills, the Babali hornbill is omnivorous, but it covers most of its nutritional needs with fruits. Up to 90 individuals of this species can gather in very abundantly fruit-bearing trees. The Barbali hornbill lives mostly in pairs or in small family groups, which consist of the breeding pair and this year's young bird.
He looks for his food mainly in tree tops. In fruit-bearing trees it is able to chase away screaming hornbills. Monkeys and French hornbills, on the other hand, are more assertive than the Barbali hornbill. Figs play a major role in the Babali hornbill, as in many other species. However, it also hunts insects such as grasshoppers, praying mantises, dragonflies, flying ants, beetles and wasps. It also eats eggs and nestlings from weaver birds such as the village weaver . To do this, he either destroys the nest or pushes his beak into the nest entrance and then tilts the nest so that he can reach the contents of the nest with the beak contents.
Reproduction
The reproductive biology of the Babali hornbill is still largely unexplored. For example, the clutch size and the color of the eggs have not yet been described. According to current knowledge, the time of reproduction is not tied to any particular season. In Nigeria Babali hornbills were observed in breeding condition in July, in Cameroon, however, in the period from November to April and in July.
Like all hornbill species, the babali hornbill is a cave breeder. It prefers natural tree hollows at a height of 20 to 25 meters above the ground. The entrance to the brood cavity is sealed except for a narrow gap. In all of the hornbill species examined in more detail, the breeding cave is sealed by the female. The male feeds the female and later the young bird through the remaining gap. The male usually carries the fruit in the throat to the nest and chokes them out again. The male only occasionally bears fruit in its beak to the nest. The male visits the nest between 14 and 18 times a day. The female that sits in the breeding cave goes through the moulting during the breeding season. This moulting is not a simultaneous moulting of the large plumage. This way the female retains her ability to fly during the breeding season. It is not yet known whether the female will leave the nest at the same time as the fledgling young bird or whether she will fly out of the nest box beforehand.
literature
- Mark Cocker, David Tipling: Birds and People. Jonathan Cape, London 2013, ISBN 978-0-2240-8174-0 .
- W. Grummt , H. Strehlow (Ed.): Zoo animal keeping birds. Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8171-1636-2 .
- Alan Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 0-19-857729-X .
- Ian Sinclair: Birds of Africa South of the Sahara: A Comprehensive Illustrated Field Guide. Struik Publishers, ISBN 1868728579 .
Web link
- Bycanistes albotibialis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2016 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Accessed December 8, 2016th
Single receipts
- ↑ Avibase on the Barbali hornbill , accessed on December 8, 2016
- ↑ Bycanistes albotibialis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2016 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Accessed December 8, 2016th
- ↑ a b c Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes . P. 249.
- ↑ a b Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes . P. 250.
- ↑ a b Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes . P. 251.