This has little to do with lemurs but...

... Hornbills are important too! Or at least I think they are, and I have some neat pictures of them so hopefully my readers and fellow lemur-enthusiasts will forgive my stray from the normal banter about how much lemurs rock.

That being said, here's my connection between hornbills and lemurs: my research site has an aviary which houses several hornbills and has even been successful in breeding a few which is an amazing feat! During my last visit to the island, whenever I had a few minutes away from collecting lemur data (those minutes were few and far between) I went and watched the birds.

Here's some background info for those of you who are unaware of what a hornbill is: A hornbill is a type of bird found in Africa and Asia. There are over 57 species, most of which, if not all, are endangered by hunting and habitat loss. Instead of me typing out their biography, if you're interested read about them on wikipedia (love love love wikipedia!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbill

Anyways! I recently started researching lar gibbons at the Toronto Zoo with two other researchers (photos to come next week). During our first visit we were lucky enough to encounter a female Great Hornbill named Asha who has unfortunately suffered some brain damage from an attack from her mate and is now mostly blind. However, she is well cared for and lives in the zoo kitchen. I was lucky enough to be gripped by her presence, so to speak...

My other encounters with Great Hornbills have not been as pleasant as my encounter with Asha though. In the island aviary is Joe. Joe is an adult male who is bonded to his mate Josephine ,who is lovely, but Joe is a complete terror. Where as he is amazing to look at, standing at a striking 4-5 feet from beak to tail, he has a double chain fence on one side of the enclosure to ensure the safety of unsuspecting passersby. Here is Joe-

In case you were wondering, that's horse meat stuck on his beak. That's right, horse.

And this is Josephine:

Josephine is really old, I'm pretty sure she's over 60 which is impressive for a hornbill. Fun fact: you may have noticed that Joe has a red eye and Josephine has a blue eye. This is how you can easily tell apart the sexes of this species, kind of neat!

Moving on from great hornbills, I also spent some time with wrinkled hornbills, this is Mr. Toots:

And finally, the extremely gentle, impressive, and playful rhinoceros hornbills!

In case you were wondering, the large protrusions from the upper part of the beaks of the hornbills are called casques (pronounce ca-sks). They are hollow and either serve as an instrument of sexual selection, or aid with long calls, the exact function is unknown.

I mostly just wrote this post to share the pictures, but something else has come to mind: what can we do to help stop the extinction of these amazing birds? Well, not too much, but at a consumer level, try buying things without palm oil in the ingredients. Palm plantations are responsible for destroying rain forests and habitats for all kinds of amazing creatures. At the risk of sounding morbid and extremist, think about it like this: next time you buy a cheap chocolate bar or a pack of instant noodles, not only is it really bad for you but the palm oil filler is responsible for the displacement and death of many hornbills. What's good to know is that Nestle has acknowledged this problem and is starting to eliminate palm oil from their products! Hooray for a step in the right direction!
Keep it real.