Goldhelm Hornbill
| Goldhelm Hornbill | ||||||||||||
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Female Golden Helmet Hornbill, Hong Kong Zoo |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ceratogymna elata | ||||||||||||
| ( Temminck , 1831) |
The gold helmet hornbill ( Ceratogymna elata ) is a monotypic bird art from the family of hornbills . Its distribution area is in western sub-Saharan Africa . Like all hornbills, the golden helmets hornbill is a cave breeder. The cave is sealed except for a narrow gap. The male provides the female and later the young bird with food.
The population of the golden helmets hornbill was classified in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2016 as " Vulnerable (VU) " = "endangered".
Appearance
The gold helmet hornbill reaches a body length of 60 to 70 centimeters. The tail feathers account for an average of 30.9 centimeters in males and 27.2 centimeters in females. The males have a beak between 20 and 23 centimeters. The beak of the females remains slightly smaller and is 14.3 to 17.6 centimeters in length. The gender dimorphism is clearly pronounced.
Appearance of the males
The males are predominantly black feathered. The feathers on the top of the body have a metallic sheen. The neck feathers have a white base and brown tips, creating a slightly scaled pattern on the neck. The control springs are white except for the middle black pair. The beak is dark gray. The underside of the beak attachment is also initially cream-colored and then turns pale yellow. The beak attachment begins far behind the beak base and ends abruptly in the middle of the beak. The featherless skin around the eye as well as the inflatable throat skin and wattles are cobalt blue. The eyes are red, the legs and feet are black.
Appearance of females and fledglings
The females resemble the males. However, they are smaller and red-brown on the head and neck. The neck feathers have a pale feather base and the throat is cream colored. The beak and the small beak tip are pale yellow. The eyes are brown.
Young birds initially resemble adult females, but their neck plumage is a bit darker. At six months of age they begin to molt into the plumage of adult birds. Annual males, like the adult birds, have a black head and neck.
Distribution area and habitat
The distribution area of the golden helmets hornbills is Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bisseau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. The distribution is not contiguous in this large area.
The habitat of the golden helmets hornbill are humid, undisturbed rainforests of the lowlands. From there, it also penetrates into secondary forest, forest areas along rivers, patches of forest in savannah areas and oil palm plantations. Compared to the Black Helmet Hornbill, it occurs more frequently in secondary forests. In Liberia, the golden helmets hornbill occurs at altitudes of 1000 meters.
Way of life
The golden-helm hornbill usually occurs in pairs. The couple is occasionally accompanied by a single young bird. Goldhelm hornbills are very rarely seen in groups of six to 12 individuals. Like many other hornbills, they occasionally spend the night with up to 50 conspecifics in a place that is often in swampy terrain.
The golden-helm hornbill looks for its food mainly in tree tops. However, it comes to the ground to eat fallen fruit and occasionally also insects. The diet consists mainly of fruits. He eats the fruits of oil palms particularly often. It gives off the indigestible fibers of the oil stalk as bulges. The distribution of oil palms also determines the distribution of the golden helmet hornbill. The golden helmet hornbill eats insects such as beetles and centipedes.
The reproductive biology of the golden helmet hornbill has not yet been conclusively investigated. To seal the breeding cave, golden helmets take up clay from the ground.
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 .
Web links
- Ceratogymna elata inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016.10. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
Single receipts
- ↑ Ceratogymna elata in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016.10. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
- ↑ Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes. P. 264.
- ↑ a b Kemp: The Hornbills - Bucerotiformes . P. 265.