The Abyssinian ground hornbill was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.

[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Buceros abyssinicus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

[5] The Abyssinian ground hornbill is now placed in the genus Bucorvus that was introduced, originally as a subgenus, by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1830.

[7] The generic name is derived from the name of the genus Buceros introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the Asian hornbills where corvus is the Latin word for a "raven".

As the juvenile matures, which usually takes 3 years, it gradually develops the plumage, bare skin colour and casque of the adults.

[14] It is found in open habitats such as savanna, sub-desert scrub, and rocky areas, preferring short vegetation which enables its visual foraging technique.

Diet in the wild consists of a wide variety of small vertebrates and invertebrates, including tortoises, lizards, snakes, birds, spiders, beetles, and caterpillars; they also take carrion, some fruits, seeds, and groundnuts.

The male prepares the nest by lining the cavity with dry leaves before the female enters and lays a clutch of one or two eggs over around five days.

[13] Abyssinian ground hornbills invest a lot in their offspring and the fledged juveniles will remain with their parents for up to three years.

They have also been recorded digging for arthropods in the soil and attacking bee hives for honeycomb; they very rarely consume any plant matter.

In some villages the call is often imitated and there are even entire songs based on the male and female duets of Abyssinian ground hornbills.