Zoologist: Many Sarawakians still cannot identify their own state bird – Rhinoceros hornbill (Video)

KUCHING: With the approaching Sarawak Day that is marked every July 22, zoologist Jason Teo has pointed out that many Sarawakians still cannot identify their own state bird – the Rhinoceros hornbill.

In a YouTube video posted on Wednesday, Teo, who is a Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) graduate and a member of the Malaysian Nature Society Sarawak, said Sarawak Day is one of his favourite festivals but his only concern every year is that a number of people still could not identify the state bird.

“I don’t want to use any photo example because I don’t want to shame anyone,” he said, with the video showing an image of the Great hornbill, which he claimed had been wrongly identified as the state bird.

He asked: “How many times have you seen people using this bird (referring to Great hornbill) to identify Sarawak?”

He reminded all that the Great hornbill is not the state bird of Sarawak given that this bird cannot be found in the state.

According to Teo, the Great hornbill can only be found in Peninsular Malaysia with no records of this hornbill species were found in Sarawak or Sabah.

“The Rhinoceros hornbill can be found in West Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah,” he said.

He then educated viewers how to distinguish the Rhinoceros hornbill from the Great hornbill by pointing out that the neck, the wings and the tusk of the two hornbill species are different.

The Great hornbill comes with whitish yellow neck and wings whereas the Rhinoceros hornbill’s neck and wings are all back, he said.

“The (Rhinoceros hornbill’s) tusk is protruding out, hence, the name Rhinoceros hornbill while the Great hornbill, not so much,” he said, adding that the tusk of the Rhinoceros hornbill is a mixture of red, orange and yellow.

With these, Teo hoped that the wrong hornbill will not be used again during this Sarawak Day do.

Sarawak, known as the Land of the Hornbills, is home to eight out of 54 species of hornbills in the world.

The eight hornbill species that can be found in the state are Oriental-pied hornbill, Black hornbill, Bushy-crested hornbill, White-crowned hornbill, Rhinoceros hornbill, Helmeted hornbill, Wrinkled hornbill and Wreathed hornbill.

Of these, Black hornbill, Oriental-pied hornbill, Rhinoceros hornbill and Wreathed hornbill are four most prominent hornbill species in Sarawak.

Legendary as its name, ‘Burung Kenyalang’, the Rhinoceros hornbill has been chosen as the Sarawak’s state emblem.

The bird is usually four feet long, has a whitish belly and white tail with a black band through the middle.

Rhinoceros hornbills are mostly found in the primary lowland dipterocarp and hill forest. The males utter deep, forceful hok notes whereas females’ calls are with a higher hak.

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