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Feb 19, 2017 Features / Columnists, Interesting Creatures in Guyana
The king vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) is a large bird found in Central and South America. It is a member of the New World vulture family Cathartidae. This vulture lives mostly in tropical lowland forests stretching from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. It is the only surviving member of the genus Sarcoramphus, although fossil members are known.
An imposing bird, the adult king vulture has predominantly white plumage, which has a slight rose-yellow tinge to it. In stark contrast, the wing coverts, flight feathers and tail are dark grey to black, as is the prominent thick neck ruff. The head and neck are devoid of feathers, the skin shades of red and purple on the head, vivid orange on the neck and yellow on the throat. On the head, the skin is wrinkled and folded, and there is a highly noticeable irregular golden crest attached on the cere above its orange and black bill; this caruncle does not fully form until the bird’s fourth year.
The king vulture has, relative to its size, the largest skull and braincase, and strongest bill of the New World vultures. This bill has a hooked tip and a sharp cutting edge. The bird has broad wings and a short, broad, and square tail. The irises of its eyes are white and bordered by bright red sclera. Unlike some New World vultures, the king vulture lacks eyelashes. It also has grey legs and long, thick claws.
The vulture is minimally sexually dimorphic, with no difference in plumage and little in size between males and females. The juvenile vulture has a dark bill and eyes, and a downy, grey neck that soon begins to turn the orange of an adult. Younger vultures are a slate grey overall, and, while they look similar to the adult by the third year, they do not completely molt into adult plumage until they are around five or six years of age.
This vulture is a scavenger and it often makes the initial cut into a fresh carcass. It also displaces smaller New World vulture species from a carcass. King vultures have been known to live for up to 30 years in captivity.
King vultures were popular figures in the Mayan codices as well as in local folklore and medicine. Although currently listed as least concern by the IUCN, they are decreasing in number, due primarily to habitat loss.
There are two theories on how the king vulture earned the “king” part of its common name. The first is that the name is a reference to its habit of displacing smaller vultures from a carcass and eating its fill while they wait
Little can be said of the evolutionary history of the genus, mainly because remains of other Neogene New World vultures are usually younger or even more fragmentary. The teratorns held sway over the ecological niche of the extant group especially in North America. The Kern vulture seems to slightly precede the main bout of the Great American Interchange, and it is notable that the living diversity of New World vultures seems to have originated in Central America.
The Kern vulture would therefore represent a northwards divergence, possibly sister to the S. fisheri – S. papa lineage. The fossil record, though scant, supports the theory that the ancestral king vultures and South American condors separated at least some 5 mya.
Excluding the two species of condors, the king vulture is the largest of the New World vultures. Its overall length ranges from 67–81 centimetres (27–32 in) and its wingspan is 1.2–2 metres (4–6.6 ft). Its weight ranges from 2.7–4.5 kilograms (6–10 lb).
Jack Eitniear of the Center for the Study of Tropical Birds in San Antonio, Texas reviewed the plumage of birds in captivity of various ages and found that ventral feathers were the first to begin turning white from two years of age onwards, followed by wing feathers, until the full adult plumage was achieved. The final immature stages being a scattered black feathers in the otherwise white lesser wing coverts.
The vulture’s head and neck are featherless as an adaptation for hygiene, though there are black bristles on parts of the head; this lack of feathers prevents bacteria from the carrion it eats from ruining its feathers and exposes the skin to the sterilizing effects of the sun.
Dark-plumaged immature birds may be confused with turkey vultures, but soar with flat wings, while the pale plumaged adults could feasibly be confused with the wood stork, although the latter’s long neck and legs allow for easy recognition from afar.
The king vulture eats anything from cattle carcasses to beached fish and dead lizards. Principally a carrion eater, there are isolated reports of it killing and eating injured animals, newborn calves and small lizards.
Although it locates food by vision, the role smell has in how it specifically finds carrion has been debated. Consensus has been that it does not detect odours, and instead follows the smaller turkey and greater yellow-headed vultures, which do have a sense of smell, to a carcass, but a 1991 study demonstrated that the king vulture could find carrion in the forest without the aid of other vultures, suggesting that it locates food using an olfactory sense.
The king vulture primarily eats carrion found in the forest, though it is known to venture onto nearby savannahs in search of food. Once it has found a carcass, the king vulture displaces the other vultures because of its large size and strong bill. However, when it is at the same kill as the larger Andean condor, the king vulture always defers to it.
Using its bill to tear, it makes the initial cut in a fresh carcass. This allows the smaller, weaker-beaked vultures, which cannot open the hide of a carcass, access to the carcass after the king vulture has fed. The vulture’s tongue is rasp-like, which allows it to pull flesh off of the carcass’s bones. Generally, it only eats the skin and harder parts of the tissue of its meal. The king vulture has also been recorded eating fallen fruit of the moriche palm when carrion is scarce in Bolívar state, Venezuela.
This bird is a species of least concern to the IUCN, with an estimated range of 14 million km2 (5.4 million mi2) and between 10,000 and 100,000 wild individuals. However, there is evidence that suggests a decline in population, though it is not significant enough to cause it to be listed. This decline is due primarily to habitat destruction and poaching. Although distinctive, its habit of perching in tall trees and flying at altitude render it difficult to monitor.
(Source: Wikipedia)
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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