Lappet-faced vulture

Torgos tracheliotus

SUBFAMILY

Accipitrinae

TAXONOMY

Vultur tracheliotus J. R. Forster, 1791, South Africa. Three sub-species.

OTHER COMMON NAMES

English: African black vulture, African king vulture, Nubian vulture; French: Vautour oricou; German: Ohrengeier; Spanish: Buitre Orejudo.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

45.3 in (115 cm); 11.9–20.7 lb (5.4–9.4 kg). Very large bird, with bald pinkish head and lappet, wings dark brown and chest white with brown accents.

DISTRIBUTION

T.t. tracheliotus: southwest to Morocco, southern Mauritania to Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa. T.t. nubicus: Egypt and northern Sudan. T.t. negevensis: Israel and Arabian peninsula.

HABITAT

Semi-arid areas and desert with scattered trees and short grass. Occasionally into mesic open savanna and grassland.

BEHAVIOR

No regular migration known but some local movement to avoid the rainy season. Sociable, congregates at carcasses (up to 50 recorded in company of other vultures) but often in pairs.

FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET

Mainly a scavenger, feeds on carrion, skin, and bone fragments from large carcasses. Dominant to other vultures when hungry, aggressively bounding at them, but often socializes around carcass before feeding.

REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY

Monogamous. Nests as solitary pair in flat-topped thorny trees. Builds a large platform of sticks lined with grass. Lays a single egg in the dry season, beginning about October–December, depending on region. Incubation about 55 days; fledging at about four months.

CONSERVATION STATUS

Vulnerable. Formerly thinly scattered throughout wide range. In 2000 only a small, declining population remained, estimated at about 8,500 individuals. Accidental poisoning from baits left by farmers for predators and persecution in the mistaken belief that the vulture preys on livestock are problems. Increasing numbers of recreational off-road vehicles may also be a threat because of the species' sensitivity to nest disturbance.

SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS

None known.

Lappet-faced Vulture
Conservation status
Vulnerable
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Accipitriformes Family: Accipitridae Genus: Torgos (Kaup, 1828) Species: T. tracheliotus
Binomial name
Torgos tracheliotus (Forster, 1791)

The Lappet-faced Vulture or Nubian Vulture, (Torgos tracheliotus) is an African Old World vulture belonging to the bird order Accipitriformes, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is the only member of the genus Torgos. A distinct subspecies T. t. negevensis occurs in the Sinai, the Negev desert and probably in north-west Saudi Arabia.

It is not closely related to the superficially similar New World vultures, and does not share that group's good sense of smell.

Like many vultures, it has a bald head. The pink (sometimes reddish) coloration is a distinctive feature. The head is bald because a feathered head would become spattered with blood and other fluids, and thus be difficult to keep clean.

It is a scavenging bird, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals which it finds by sight or by watching other vultures. Large carcasses, since they provide the most subsistence at a sitting, are preferred. Lappet-faced Vultures, perhaps more so than any other vulture, will also on occasion attack young and weak living animals and raid the nests of other birds. Locally, Lesser Flamingoes, among others, have been reported to be culled by Lappet-faces in this way.

It is about 1.15 meters (3.8 feet) long, with a wingspan of 2.5 meters (8.5 feet). The average weight is 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds). There are some records of birds as heavy as 15 kilogram (33 pounds), but these are believed to reference overfed, zoo-kept specimens. They are the most powerful and aggressive of the African vultures and other vultures usually cede a carcass to the Lappet-faced Vulture. This is often beneficial to the less-powerful vultures because the Lappet-face can tear through the tough hides and muscles of large mammals that the others can't penetrate, although hyaenas are even more efficient in this regard.

External links

• ARKive - images and movies of the lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos)

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