5 Fascinating Facts About the Spotted Hyena "Cowardly," "ugly," "thieving"... It appears that no one…

5 Fascinating Facts About Vultures
5 Fascinating Facts About Vultures
By getting rid of decaying carcasses, these scavenger raptors—the hyenas of the skies—play a crucial part in ecological cleanup. Vultures can soar for hours on end because to their broad wings. They can find their prey from a great distance thanks to their acute vision. They can also handle the most rotten carcass because to strong stomach acids.
Five Intriguing Vulture Facts
The largest of the 10 species found in Africa are the cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres) and lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos). Both can have wingspans of up to 2.9 meters.
At a carcass, vultures maintain a rigid hierarchy between members of the same species as well as other species. The large, aggressive lappet-faced vulture is the dominant species at a typical savannah gathering. It opens the corpse for others with its strong bill.
Thermals allow vultures to reach incredible heights. At 11,300 meters above Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, a Ruppell’s vulture sucked into a jet engine. It holds the altitude record for birds (posthumously).
A typical vulture’s bare head is an adaptation that helps it avoid getting any feathers dirty when feeding inside a carcass. It also aids in thermoregulation, enabling it to conceal or reveal its head in response to environmental changes, thereby preserving or losing heat.
A vulture’s crop, a detachable bag in front of its throat, may hold up to 1 kg of carrion. Since vultures are unable to rely on finding food every day, this stockpile serves as a packed lunch. It will quickly take flight and flee if its crop is disturbed.
Among animals, the little Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is one of the most well-known users of tools. By throwing tiny stones against the shell, it cracks open the eggs of big birds, such as ostriches. The process is repeated until the shell breaks. In 1963, renowned primatologist Jane Goodall made the first observation of this behavior in Ngorongoro Crater.