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The featherless head of the American black vulture, Coragyps atratus brasiliensis, ... The king vulture is commonly represented, ...
It is a large black vulture with a ruff of white feathers surrounding the base of the neck and, especially in the male, large white patches on the wings. The head and neck are nearly featherless, and are a dull red color, which may flush and therefore change color in response to the bird's emotional state.
[5] [6] The common name "vulture" is derived from the Latin word vulturus, which means "tearer" and is a reference to its feeding habits. [7] The species name, ātrātus, means "clothed in black", from the Latin āter 'dull black'. [8] Black vulture pair feeding on a mule deer head. Plate 106 from The Birds of America by J. J. Audubon.
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors ). [ 2 ] Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe , Africa , and Asia ; New World vultures are restricted to North and South America and consist of seven identified species, all belonging to the Cathartidae family .
The lesser yellow-headed vulture was first described in 1845 by John Cassin. [4] It is sometimes recognized as having two subspecies. The first, Cathartes burrovianus urubitinga, described by Austrian ornithologist August von Pelzeln in 1851, is the larger of the two and is found from Argentina north to Colombia, while the nominate subspecies, Cathartes burrovianus burrovianus, is smaller and ...
All Cathartes species have featherless heads with brightly colored skin, yellow to orange in the yellow-headed vultures, bright red in the turkey vulture. All three species share a well-developed sense of smell, which is rare in birds, that enables them to locate carrion under the canopy.
The greater yellow-headed vulture is 64–75 centimetres (25–30 in) in length, with a wingspan of 166–178 centimetres (65–70 in), a tail length of 25–29 centimetres (9.8–11.4 in) [10] and a weight averaging 1.65 kilograms (3.6 lb). [11] Its plumage is black with a green or purple sheen. The throat and the sides of the head are ...
It inhabits a variety of open and semi-open areas. It has dark brown to black plumage, a featherless, purplish-red head and neck, and a short, hooked, ivory-colored beak. It is a scavenger and feeds almost exclusively on carrion. It finds its meals using its sense of smell, flying low enough to detect the gases produced by the beginnings of the ...