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  Profile

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  In flight

Tropical Birds

Sulu Hornbill

Anthracoceros montani

• legendary
• 32 km/h
• Critically Endangered

Fewer than 30 remain on two small Philippine islands. Delivers messages from a forest running out of canopy.

Population

1-49 mature individuals per IUCN's official band (fewer than 20 pairs in the core range); a widely-cited 2019 figure puts it at ~27 individuals, though Wikipedia itself flags that number as disputed. Confined mainly to a single forest patch on Tawi-Tawi.

Habitat

Primary dipterocarp forest, typically on mountain slopes; IUCN gives a lower elevation limit of 0m with a 2018 survey record at ~250m in Panglima Sugala, Tawi-Tawi; requires large trees for nesting and will visit isolated fruiting trees away from forest edges.

Fun fact

The Sulu Hornbill is one of the rarest birds on Earth, with its entire known wild population confined to a single forest patch of about 10 square kilometers on Tawi-Tawi Island in the Philippines.

Range

Endemic to the Sulu Archipelago, Philippines; now confirmed only on Tawi-Tawi Island, with the core population concentrated in a forest patch of roughly 10 km²; extirpated from Jolo Island since the 1930s.

Diet

Mainly fruit (frugivorous, favors figs), supplemented with small lizards/reptiles and insects.

Size

0.7 m