Male Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill successfully raises chick despite death of female inside nest

Abstract

Although most biparental bird species divide provisioning responsibilities relatively equally, hornbills are characterized by male-biased provisioning. Even after departing the nest cavity, female Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills (Tockus leucomelas) do not provision offspring at the same rates as their mates. Given that males provide food for the female during her period of incarceration within the nest cavity (which corresponds to the pre-laying, laying, incubation, and early chick-rearing stages), a lack of provisioning on the part of the female during the weeks after she has left the confines of the cavity suggests that males could potentially perform 100% of the provisioning. In early 2018 I followed the fate of a nest in which the breeding female died shortly before leaving the nest box. The male continued to feed the chick inside which fledged approximately one month later.