Great Hornbills

Great Hornbills

Great Hornbills
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 3 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.77

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		droppings, feathery, fliers, lays, opening, species, certainly, entire, great, actually, among, eye-catching, male, otherwise, flight, powerful
	content words:		Southeast Asian

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Spanish: El Cálao Bicorne

Great Hornbills

¹     Great hornbills are certainly among the most unique-looking bird species in the world. Although their other assumed name, Indian hornbills, implies that we can find them in India, their residences actually extend to several Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar (formally known as Burma), and Malaysia. Living in forests, great hornbills wear eye-catching yellow helmets (or casques) that extend from the top of their heads to the middle of their large, strong, downward-curving bills. Great hornbills paint their faces and chins in black and color their necks and the back of their heads in yellowish white. They wear black feathery coats with white wingtips. As if their appearance has not been extraordinary enough, great hornbills go one step further to smear a wide stripe of black across the center of their all-white tails.

²     Great hornbills measure about 5 feet long and weigh around 6.5 pounds. While fruits are their favorite food, great hornbills also supplement their diet with lizards, snakes, insects, mice, and other small animals.

³     Great hornbills are slow but powerful fliers. When they are in flight, they make loud, swooshing sounds. Male and female great hornbills look alike. To tell them apart is relatively easy, so long as you look closely. Male great hornbills have a black trim between their casques and their bills, whereas female great hornbills do not. Furthermore, male great hornbills have black-rimmed red irises, but female great hornbills have red-rimmed white irises.

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