quality:corruption
Diet

Hornbills are omnivorous birds, eating fruit, insects and small animals. They cannot swallow food caught at the tip of the beak as their tongues are too short to manipulate it, so they toss it back to the throat with a jerk of the head. While both open country and forest species are omnivorous, species that specialise in feeding on fruit are generally found in forests, while the more carnivorous species are found in open country. Forest-dwelling species of hornbills are considered to be important seed dispersers. Some hornbill species (e.g., Malabar pied-hornbill) even have a great preference for the fruits of the strychnine tree (Strychnos nux-vomica), which contain the potent poison strychnine.

Some hornbills defend a fixed territory. Territoriality is related to diet; fruit sources are often patchily distributed and require long-distance travel to find. Thus, species that specialise in fruit are less territorial.