Oriental Pied Hornbill Anthracoceros albirostris

The Oriental Pied Hornbill is native to tropical and subtropical forests of South and Southeast Asia. It is black with a white belly, white or pale blue eyerings and an ivory casque. The adult male is much larger than the female, with a larger casque and bright red eyes.

Shown is the Southern Oriental Pied, one of two subspecies, also called the Sunda Pied (A.a. convexus), native to southern Thailand, Malay Peninsula (including Singapore where these photos were taken) and some Indonesian islands. It has a fully white undertail on the adult rather than black and white.

Hornbills are monogamous and require suitable pre-excavated nesting cavities, so particularly suffering declines from deforestation. The Oriental Pied is now extinct in southern China; it became extinct in Singapore but reintroduction and conservation efforts have been successful.

Hornbills are mainly fruit-eaters, their large gape allowing them to eat large fruit and be important dispersers of large seeds in their forest habitat. They will also eat large insects and small animals (amphibians, birds, bats).