Vultures : Everything you need to know about these scavenger birds

What are most scavenger birds around the world that you can think of ?. You probably heard about these birds of which we are going to talk about today. These are of course, the Vultures. The most scavenging birds of prey in the animal kingdom. Whenever there is a dead carcass of body laying idle, these birds are probably the first animals to arrive on the scene to take advantage if the situation. But aside from being scavengers, what are the other traits and nature they posses?. Therefore let's learn about everything we need to know about these birds in order to have a deep insight in their life. So let's start.

Aegypiinae (Vultures)

General Info

Vultures are often known for scavenger instinct and their weird appearance. They have shaggy look with bent and hairless neck (in most of the species) and a bulky body. There are 23 known species of vultures around the world in which 16 of them are endangered and are currently on the spot of "Critically Endangered" on the IUCN red list. They are found in almost all continents of the world except Antarctica, Australia and other neighboring countries (like New Zealand and other island countries). Among all the species, the "Black vulture" is the most common and abundant among all the other individuals in their class. Also their lifespans can be anywhere between 10 to 30 years (or sometimes even up to 50 years) depending upon the type of specie.

All the 23 species of vulture are divide into two main categories:

1) New world vultures

• King vulture 

• Black vulture  (Most common)

• Andean condor  (Biggest)

• California condor

• Greater yellow-headed vulture

• Lesser yellow-headed vulture 

• Turkey vulture 

2) Old world vultures

• Egyptian vulture  (Smallest)

• Bearded vulture

• Palm-nut vulture

• Indian vulture  (Most endangered)

• Cinereous vulture 

• Rüppell's griffon vulture (Highest flying bird) 

• Griffon vulture

• Himalayan vulture 

• Cape vulture 

• White-rumped vulture

• Slender-billed vulture 

• Red-headed vulture 

• White-headed vulture

• White-backed vulture 

• Hooded vulture 

• Lappet-faced vulture 

Physical Characteristics

Vultures are medium/large sized birds with a light or bulky body varying from specie to specie. Their body color also depends on the type of species as they can be of different colors like black with pale under-wing parts, grey, brown, white, yellow and pink headed. They have a strong hooked beaked for tearing the flesh of their prey. They have broad wings as compared to other birds in order to hover and glide in the skies for a longer period of time. 

Andean condor (Top Left), Egyptian vulture (Top Right), Indian vulture (bottom Left) and Black vulture (Bottom Right)

The body length can be anywhere between 1.90 to 4.26 feet (0.58 to 1.3 meters) with a weight between 4.62 to 33 pounds (2.1 to 15 Kg). As for their wingspans, they can be anywhere between 5.9 to 10.5 feet (1.8 to 3.2 meters), again depending upon the type of specie.

Their style of flight is very efficient. Their wings take a V-shaped structure in order to fly in the skies without loosing much energy. It is often seen that they use to flap harder with a sound instead of continuously flapping for saving energy.

Biological Features

The digestive system of vultures are quite strong as they have the ability to fully digest rotten flesh or carcasses of animals without having any problem. Their digestive system contains highly acidic enzymes and other contents in order to digest all the highly toxic substances and rotten products. Therefore for this reason they are often referred as the cleaners of the animal kingdom.

They eat fast and can eat 2.2 pounds (1 Kg) of meat in merely 1 minute. Not only they can eat fast and digest the most rotten things, they can also quick throw up (vomit) all the content in their stomach really fast. They do this in order to lower their body weight so that they can take a quick take off or can fly more easily without much weight inside the belly. So if you see any vulture doing strange gesture or head movements who is about to take a flight, you just might want to step away from that vulture so that you don't get caught yourself covered with vulture's throw up.

Behavior and lifestyle

Despite of their looks and presence, vultures are not aggressive in nature. They do not posses any danger to the humans. Most of the vultures live in small or large groups (depending upon individual specie ). They fly high in the sky and use their sense of smell or their superior vision to get the location of their prey or animal carcasses. Speaking of carcasses, it is often observed that animal carcasses having thick skin are dealt with the help of their strong beak to tear down the flesh or they just simply wait for other big scavengers like hyenas and wild dogs to tear down the flesh for them.

As they deal with number of animal carcasses and rotten flesh throughout their whole life, they are adapted to take care of any bacteria or infection effecting their body. Vultures, specially in the hot regions like Savannah are often see to urinate on their upper body and legs to preventing them from any toxic substances after feeding on animals carcasses. Urinating on their body also helps them to cool down their body temperature.

Reproduction 

Most of the species of vultures reach the stage of sexual maturity at the age of 5 to 7 years. Vulture tend to show a more simple nature as they are found to live most of their life and mate with only one partner and produce eggs after every 2 or 3 years. The mating season for most of the species of vultures usually starts in the month of March and can last up to the month of June. While for some other species mating/breeding season can last longer, from the month of January to the month of July.

 

The female of larger species of vultures lays only one egg while the other smaller species can lay 2 to 3 eggs. After the incubation period of 28 to 68 days (depending upon the species), the eggs are hatched. The babies are feed and nourished for the next 8 to 12 weeks in order to grow the babies. As soon as they are grown, the parents leaves their babies and the young vultures are mostly on their on their own. The survival chances of the young vultures are only 10%  to 12% in their first year.

Old world vultures Vs New world vultures

The old world vultures are mainly found in the Eastern continents like Asia, Africa and Europe, and on the other hand the new world vultures are mostly found at the Western continents and their countries like Canada, America and the continent of South America.

The other main difference between is about their dependence on different abilities to find food. The Old world vultures mainly use their sharps eyesight and vision to find out the food while the New world vultures use their keen sense of smell to find out their food.

Facts and summary

• Vultures are almost purely scavenger birds.

• Aside from feeding on dead carcasses, they are also found to attack wounded animals.

• There are 23 known species of vultures in total.

• They are classified mainly in two types: The old world vultures and The new world vultures.

• Old world vultures have excellent vision while New world vultures have excellent sense of smell and can smell a rotten carcass from almost a mile away.

• Old and New world vultures are not closely related. The evolution (Convergent Evolution specifically) has helped them to gain similar type of trait and characteristics. 

• New world vulture do not have a voice box, which makes them quite silent.

• They can eat 1 Kg (2.2 pounds) of meat in under a minute. They can eat up to 20% of their own body weight in one feast.

• They fly very efficiently and often require much less energy to fly as compared to other birds.

• Vultures are seen to projectile vomit on order to take a quick take off or to reduce their overall body weight to fly more easily.

• Vultures fly at a greater height as compared to most of the other birds.

• They urinate on themselves to keep their body cool and to prevent them from any disease.

• Group of vulture are referred by different names, which are: 'Kettle"(when they are flying), "Committee" (when they are resting or just standing on the ground) and "Wake" (When they are feeding). 

•  Their digestive is very strong and is capable of digesting toxic substances found in the rotten flesh as they have a highly corrosive belly (acidic).

• They regulate the environment health by eating rotten things so that diseases do not spread. Let's just take a moment to acknowledge their deeds.

• The small Egyptian and hooded vultures are smallest among the species with the Andean condor being the largest of all of them.

• The two species of new world vultures (California condor and Andean Condor) are commonly referred as "Condors" instead of vultures.

• Rüppell's griffon vulture is the highest flying bird. (debatable, with Bar headed goose).

• Egyptian vultures use rocks and other hard surfaces to break hard egg shells (like that of an Ostrich's).

• The first Saturday of September is dedicated to vultures as "International Vulture Awareness Day".

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