Animal Fact Sheet
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Turkey vulture
Cathartes aura
What does it look
like?
- Length: 25 inches Wingspan: 72 inches
- Sexes similar
- Very large, broad-winged, soaring bird
- Long and rounded tail
- Longish, hooked bill
- Rather short, thick legs
- Holds wings in a dihedral angle while soaring and gliding
- Spends most time soaring, infrequent flaps are slow and laborious
- Small, red, unfeathered head
- Plumage dark brown except for paler flight feathers, appearing
black and gray
- Immature like adult, except head is black
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| Where
in the world?
Very common throughout North and South America. Will migrate or
at least move a little depending on what part of the range they
reside in.
What are some behaviors?
Excrete on legs to cool off, “urohydrosis”, and to help
fight bacteria that could have been acquired from eating carrion.
Very tolerant of microbial toxins, such as botulism,
and certain synthetic poisons that have been used to kill coyotes
and ground squirrels. This is very important since they find food
by the rotten smell of the meat.
Will find and circle on warm, pockets of rising
air, called “thermals” to gain elevation, which conserves
more of the turkey vultures energy than flapping wings.
DNA evidence shows that turkey vultures and other
new world vultures are more closely related to storks than they
are to old world vultures. The similarities are due to convergent
evolution.
What about offspring?
• Nest on cliff or snag in tree
• No real nest building
• Usually 1 mottled egg
• Male and female incubate for period
 of about 37-48
days total
• Fledge within about 3 months
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What does it eat?
Carrion. This bird is one of only a few species with an acute sense
of smell. They are designed to soar low to the ground and smell
small food items, unlike some other vulture species, like the black
vulture, who will congregate at a large carcass and must be bold
and tenacious to obtain pieces of food.
Is it threatened
or endangered?
This is a very common bird. Has probably benefited from human traffic
in some areas, since cars supply food in the form of road kill.
It is protected from harassment or shooting by the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act. |
