| Taxon | Bucorvus |
|---|---|
| Authority | Lesson, 1830 |
| Type species | Buceros abyssinicus |
| Type species authority | Boddaert, 1783 |
The ground hornbills are birds belonging to the genus, Bucorvus, in the hornbill family, Bucerotidae. The two species are endemic to open savanna regions of sub-Saharan Africa: the Abyssinian ground hornbill occurs in a belt from Senegal east to Ethiopia, and the southern ground hornbill occurs in southern and East Africa. The ground hornbills have sometimes been placed in a separate family, Bucorvidae.
Ground hornbills are large, with adults around a metre tall. Both species are ground-dwelling, unlike other hornbills. They are carnivorous and feed on insects, snakes, other birds, amphibians and even tortoises.[1]
Taxonomy
The genus Bucorvus was introduced in 1830, originally as a subgenus, by the French naturalist René Lesson to accommodate a single species, Buceros abyssinicus Boddaert, the Abyssinian ground hornbill. This is the type species.[2][3] The generic name is a portmanteau of the genus Buceros introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the Asian hornbills and corvus, the Latin word for a "raven".[4]
A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2013 found that the genus Bucorvus was sister to the rest of the hornbills.[5] The ground hornbills are estimated to have diverged from the other hornbills in the early Miocene, around 22 million years ago.[6] The ground hornbills in the genus Bucorvus have sometimes been placed in a separate family, Bucorvidae.[7]
The genus contains two species:[8]
| Image | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abyssinian ground hornbill | Bucorvus abyssinicus | Senegambia to Ethiopia, northern Uganda, and northeastern Kenya | |
| Southern ground hornbill | Bucorvus leadbeateri | savanna of eastern and southern Africa |
References
- ^ Kemp, A.C. (2001). "Family Bucerotidae (Hornbills)". Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 6: Mousebirds to Hornbills. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. pp. 436–523 [437, 463]. ISBN 978-84-87334-30-6.
- ^ Lesson, René (1830). Traité d'Ornithologie, ou Tableau Méthodique (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: F.G. Levrault. p. 256 (livre 4)
- ^ Peters, James Lee (ed.) (1945). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 272.
- ^ Jobling, James A. "Bucorvus". The Key to Scientific Names. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved 9 October 2025.
- ^ Gonzalez, J.-C.T.; Sheldon, B.C.; Collar, N.J.; Tobias, J.A. (2013). "A comprehensive molecular phylogeny for the hornbills (Aves: Bucerotidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 67 (2): 468–483. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.02.012
- ^ Prum, R.O.; Berv, J.S.; Dornburg, A.; Field, D.J.; Townsend, J.P.; Lemmon, E.M.; Lemmon, A.R. (2015). "A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing". Nature. 526 (7574): 569–573. doi:10.1038/nature15697
- ^ The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. Vol. 1: Non-passerines. 4th ed. Eastbourne, UK: Aves Press. 2013. p. 282. ISBN 978-0-9568611-0-8.
- ^ AviList Core Team (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025". doi:10.2173/avilist.v2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.