By Carolyn Cowan Biologists have long known hornbills are supreme long-distance seed dispersers. The iconic forest birds are capable of transporting tree seeds over vast distances — up to 10 kilometers, or 6 miles, for some species. In so doing, they distribute tree populations across increasingly fragmented tropical forest landscapes. But actually observing hornbill seed dispersal behavior in the wild is notoriously difficult. “If you’re collecting data in the field, it’s very hard to observe hornbills interacting with plants, not to mention finding out where the bird flies to when it leaves …