The king vulture (''Sarcoramphus papa'') is a large

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

found in Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. It is a member of the

New World vulture Cathartidae, known commonly as New World vultures or condors, are a family (biology), family of birds of prey consisting of seven extant species in five genus, genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in the Americas. ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Cathartidae Cathartidae, known commonly as New World vultures or condors, are a family of birds of prey consisting of seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in the Americas. They are known as "New W ...

. This vulture lives predominantly in tropical lowland forests stretching from southern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

to northern

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. It is the only surviving member of the genus ''Sarcoramphus'', although fossil members are known. Large and predominantly white, the king vulture has gray to black ruff, flight, and tail

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an exa ...

s. The head and neck are bald, with the skin color varying, including yellow, orange, blue, purple, and red. The king vulture has a very noticeable orange fleshy caruncle on its beak. 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 A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

, they are decreasing in number, due primarily to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

Etymology, taxonomy, and systematics

The king vulture was originally described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

'' as ''Vultur papa'', the type specimen originally collected in

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

. It was reassigned to the genus ''Sarcoramphus'' in 1805 by French zoologist

André Marie Constant Duméril André Marie Constant Duméril (1 January 1774 – 14 August 1860) was a French zoologist. He was professor of anatomy at the National Museum of Natural History (France), Muséum national d'histoire naturelle from 1801 to 1812, when he became pr ...

. The generic name is a

Neo-Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

compound formed from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

words σάρξ (''sarx'', "flesh", the combining form of which is σαρκο-) and ῥάμφος (''rhamphos'', "crooked beak of bird of prey"). The genus name is often misspelled as ''Sarcorhamphus'', improperly retaining the Greek

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...

despite

agglutination In linguistics, agglutination is a morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single Syntax, syntactic feature. Languages that use agglu ...

with the previous word-element. The bird was also assigned to the genus ''Gyparchus'' by Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger in 1841, but this classification is not used in modern literature since ''Sarcoramphus'' has priority as the earlier name. The species name is derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word ''papa'' "bishop", alluding to the bird's plumage resembling the clothing of one. The king vulture's closest living relative is the

Andean condor The Andean condor (''Vultur gryphus'') is a South American New World vulture and is the only member of the genus ''Vultur''. It is found in the Andes mountains and adjacent Pacific coasts of western South America. With a maximum wingspan of and ...

, ''Vultur gryphus''. Some authors have even put these species in a separate subfamily from the other New World vultures, though most authors consider this subdivision unnecessary. 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. An alternative theory reports that the name is derived from Mayan legends, in which the bird was a king who served as a messenger between humans and the gods. This bird was also known as the "white crow" by the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

. It was called ''cozcacuauhtli'' in

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

, derived from ''cozcatl'' "collar" and ''cuauhtli'' "bird of prey". The exact

systematic Systematic may refer to: Science * Short for systematic error * Systematic fault * Systematic bias, errors that are introduced by an inaccuracy inherent to the system Economy * Systematic trading, a way of defining trade goals, risk control ...

placement of the king vulture and the remaining six species of

s remains unclear. Though both are similar in appearance and have similar ecological roles, the New World and Old World vultures evolved from different ancestors in different parts of the world. Just how different the two are is currently under debate, with some earlier authorities suggesting that the New World vultures are more closely related to

storks Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout Beak, bills. They belong to the family (biology), family Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, suc ...

. More recent authorities maintain their overall position in the order

Falconiformes The order Falconiformes () is represented by the extant family Falconidae, Falconidae (falcons and caracaras) and a handful of enigmatic Paleogene species. Traditionally, the other bird of prey families New World vulture, Cathartidae (New World v ...

along with the Old World vultures or place them in their own order, Cathartiformes. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from

Ciconiiformes Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons and ibise ...

and instead placed them in ''

Incertae sedis or is a term used for a taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty ...

'', but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible.Remsen, J. V. Jr.; C. D. Cadena; A. Jaramillo; M. Nores; J. F. Pacheco; M. B. Robbins; T. S. Schulenberg; F. G. Stiles; D. F. Stotz & K. J. Zimmer. 2007
''A classification of the bird species of South America.''
South American Classification Committee. Retrieved on 15 October 2007 Like other New World vultures, the king vulture has a diploid chromosome number of 80.

Fossil record and evolution

The genus ''Sarcoramphus'', which today contains only the king vulture, had a wider distribution in the past. The Kern vulture (''Sarcoramphus kernense''), lived in southwestern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

during the mid-

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Piacenzian The Piacenzian is in the international geologic time scale the upper stage (stratigraphy), stage or latest age (geology), age of the Pliocene. It spans the time between 3.6 ± 0.005 year#SI prefix multipliers, Ma and 2.58 Ma (million years ago). T ...

), some 3.5–2.5 million years ago). It was a little-known component of the

Blancan The Blancan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 4,750,000 to 1,806,000 years BP, a period of .Delmontian

faunal stage In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a succession of rock strata laid down in a single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition. A given stage of rock and the corresponding age of time will by conven ...

s. The only material is a broken

distal Standard anatomical terms of location are used to describe unambiguously the anatomy of humans and other animals. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provi ...

humerus The humerus (; : humeri) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius (bone), radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extrem ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

, found at Pozo Creek,

Kern County, California Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield. Kern County compris ...

. As per Loye H. Miller's original description, " mpared with 'S. papa''the

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

conforms in general form and curvature except for its greater size and robustness." The large span in time between the existence of the two species suggests that the Kern vulture might be distinct, but as the fossil is somewhat damaged and rather non-diagnostic, even assignment to this genus is not completely certain. During the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

, another species probably assignable to the genus, ''Sarcoramphus fisheri'', occurred in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. A supposed king vulture relative from

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

cave deposits in

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

turned out to be bones of the

eagle Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

-sized

hawk Hawks are birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are very widely distributed and are found on all continents, except Antarctica. The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and others. This ...

'' Buteogallus borrasi'' (formerly in ''Titanohierax''). Little can be said of the

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

ary history of the genus, mainly because remains of other

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

New World vultures are usually younger or even more fragmentary. The teratorns held sway over the

ecological niche In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of Resource (biology), resources an ...

of the extant group, especially in North America. The Kern vulture seems to slightly precede the main bout of the

Great American Interchange The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land ...

, and notably the living diversity of New World vultures seems to have originated in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

. 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.

Bartram's "painted vulture"

A "painted vulture" ("''Sarcoramphus sacra''" or "''S. papa sacra''") is described in William Bartram's notes of his travels in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

during the 1770s. This bird's description matches the appearance of the king vulture except that it had a white, not black, tail. Bartram describes the bird as being relatively common and even claimed to have collected one. However, no other naturalists recorded the painted vulture in Florida and sixty years after the sighting, its validity began to be questioned, leading to what

John Cassin John Cassin (September 6, 1813 – January 10, 1869) was an American ornithology, ornithologist from Pennsylvania. He worked as curator and vice president at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and focused on the systemic classification ...

described as the most inviting problem in North American ornithology. An independent account and painting was made of a similar bird by Eleazar Albin in 1734. While most early ornithologists defended Bartram's honesty,

Joel Asaph Allen Joel Asaph Allen (July 19, 1838 – August 29, 1921) was an American zoology, zoologist, mammalogy, mammalogist, and ornithology, ornithologist. He became the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, the first curator of birds and ma ...

argued that the painted vulture was mythical and that Bartram mixed elements of different species to create this bird. Allen pointed out that the birds' behavior, as recorded by Bartram, is in complete agreement with the caracara's. For example, Bartram observed the birds following

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

s to scavenge for burned insects and

box turtle Box turtle is the common name for several species of Testudines, turtle. It may refer to those of the Genus (biology), genus ''Cuora'' or ''Pyxidea mouhotii, Pyxidea'', which are the Asian people, Asian box turtles, or more commonly to species of ...

s. Such behavior is typical of caracaras, but the larger and shorter-legged king vultures are not well adapted for walking. The

crested caracara The crested caracara (''Caracara plancus'') is a bird of prey (raptor) in the falcon Family (biology), family, Falconidae. It was formerly placed in the genus ''Polyborus'' before being given in its own genus, ''Caracara (genus), Caracara''. It i ...

(''Caracara cheriway'') was believed to be common and conspicuous in Bartram's days, but it is notably absent from Bartram's notes if the painted vulture is accepted as a ''Sarcoramphus''. However, Francis Harper argued that the bird could, as in the 1930s, have been rare in the area Bartram visited and could have been missed. Harper noticed that Bartram's notes were considerably altered and expanded in the printed edition, and the detail of the white tail appeared in print for the first time in this revised account. Harper believed that Bartram could have tried to fill in details of the bird from memory and got the tail coloration wrong. Harper and several other researchers have attempted to prove the former existence of the king vulture, or a close relative, in Florida at this late date, suggesting that the population was in the process of

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

ion and finally disappeared during a cold spell.Day, David (1981): ''The Doomsday Book of Animals'': Ebury, London/Viking, New York. Additionally, William McAtee, noting the tendency of birds to form Floridian subspecies, suggested that the white tail could be a sign that the painted vulture was a subspecies of the king vulture.

Description

Excluding the two species of

condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...

s, the king vulture is the largest of the New World vultures. Its overall length ranges from and its wingspan is . Its weight ranges from . 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 to the

cere The beak, bill, or Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for pecking, wikt:grasp#Verb, grasping, and holding (in wikt:probe ...

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 The sclera, also known as the white of the eye or, in older literature, as the tunica albuginea oculi, is the opaque, fibrous, protective outer layer of the eye containing mainly collagen and some crucial elastic fiber. In the development of t ...

. Unlike some New World vultures, the king vulture lacks eyelashes. It also has gray legs and long, thick claws. Sarcorhanphus papa

The vulture is minimally

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

, 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, gray neck that soon begins to turn the orange of an adult. Younger vultures are a slate gray 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. 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 Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

from the

carrion Carrion (), also known as a carcass, is the decaying flesh of dead animals. Overview Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters (or scavengers) include crows, vultures ...

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 The wood stork (''Mycteria americana'') is a large wading bird in the family (biology), family Ciconiidae (Ciconiiformes, storks). Originally described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, this stork is native to the subtropics and tropics of the Americas ...

, although the latter's long neck and legs allow for easy recognition from afar.

Distribution and habitat

The king vulture inhabits an estimated between southern

and northern

. In

, it does not live west of the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

, except in western

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, north-western

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and far north-western

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

. It primarily inhabits undisturbed tropical lowland forests as well as

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

s and

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

s with these forests nearby. It is often seen near

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s or marshy places in the forests. This bird is often the most numerous or only vulture present in primary lowland forests in its range, but in the

Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

, it is typically outnumbered by the greater yellow-headed vulture, while typically outnumbered by the lesser yellow-headed,

turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, and American black vulture in more open habitats. King vultures generally do not live above , although are found in places at altitude east of the Andes, and have been rarely recorded up to They inhabit the emergent forest level, or above the canopy. Pleistocene remains have been recovered from

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

in central Argentina, over south of its current range, giving rise to speculation on the habitat there at the time which had not been thought to be suitable.

Ecology and behavior

The king vulture soars for hours effortlessly, only flapping its wings infrequently. While in flight, its wings are held flat with slightly raised tips, and from a distance the vulture can appear to be headless while in flight. Its wing beats are deep and strong. Birds have been observed engaging in tandem flight on two occasions in Venezuela by naturalist Marsha Schlee, who has proposed it could be a part of courtship behaviour. Despite its size and gaudy coloration, this vulture is quite inconspicuous when it is perched in trees. While perched, it holds its head lowered and thrust forward. It is non-migratory and, unlike the

, lesser yellow-headed and American black vulture, it generally lives alone or in small family groups. Groups of up to 12 birds have been observed bathing and drinking in a pool above a waterfall in Belize. One or two birds generally descend to feed on a carcass, although occasionally up to ten or so may gather if there is a significant amount of food. King vultures have lived up to 30 years in captivity, though a male transferred from the Sacramento Zoo to the Queens Zoo is over 47 years old. Vivian, a female King Vulture at Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, TX, turned 70 years old in 2022 and is the oldest known King Vulture in an AZA-accredited facility. Their lifespan in the wild is unknown. This vulture uses urohidrosis, defecating on its legs, to lower its body temperature. Despite its bill and large size, it is relatively unaggressive at a kill. The king vulture lacks a voice box, although it can make low croaking noises and wheezing sounds in courtship, and bill-snapping noises when threatened. Its only natural predators are

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

s, which will prey upon the vulture's eggs and young, and large cats such as

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large felidae, cat species and the only extant taxon, living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat spe ...

s, which may surprise and kill an adult vulture at a carcass.

Breeding

The reproductive behaviour of the king vulture in the wild is poorly known, and much knowledge has been gained from observing birds in captivity, particularly at the Paris Menagerie. An adult king vulture sexually matures when it is about four or five years old, with females maturing slightly earlier than males. The birds mainly breed during the dry season. A king vulture mates for life and generally lays a single unmarked white

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

in its nest in a hollow in a tree. To ward off potential predators, the vultures keep their nests foul-smelling. Both parents incubate the egg for 52 to 58 days before it hatches. If the egg is lost, it will often be replaced after about six weeks. The parents share incubating and brooding duties until the chick is about a week old, after which they often stand guard rather than brood. The young are semi-

altricial Precocial species in birds and mammals are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. They are normally nidifugous, meaning that they leave the nest shortly after birth or hatching. Altricial ...

—they are helpless when born but are covered in downy feathers (truly altricial birds are born naked), and their eyes are open at birth. Developing quickly, the chicks are fully alert by their second day, able to beg and wriggle around the nest, preen themselves, and peck by their third day. They start growing their second coat of white down by day 10 and stand on their toes by day 20. From one to three months of age, chicks walk around and explore the vicinity of the nest, and take their first flights at about three months of age.

Feeding

The king vulture eats anything from cattle carcasses down to corpses of monkeys and other arboreal mammals to beached fish and dead lizards.Ferguson-Lees, J. & Christie, D.A. & Franklin, K. & Mead, D. & Burton, P.. (2001). Raptors of the world. Helm Identification Guides. In densely forested areas, mammals likely to be included are many of the abundant sloths ('' Choloepus''/'' Bradypus'') whose combined ranges coincide largely with that of this vulture, but elsewhere it has adapted well to domestic livestock. 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

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 The sense of smell, or olfaction, is the special sense through which smells (or odors) are perceived. The sense of smell has many functions, including detecting desirable foods, hazards, and pheromones, and plays a role in taste. In humans, it ...

sense. The king vulture primarily eats carrion found in the forest, though it is known to venture onto nearby savannas 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

, 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 can not open the hide of a carcass, access to the carcass after the king vulture has fed. The vulture's tongue is

rasp A rasp is a coarse form of file used for shaping wood, metal, or other material. Typically a hand tool, it consists of a generally tapered rectangular, round, or half-round sectioned bar of case hardened steel with distinct, individually cu ...

-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.

Conservation

This bird is a species of

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

to the

, with an estimated range of 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 Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

and

poaching Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the huntin ...

. Although distinctive, its habit of perching in tall trees and flying at high altitudes renders it difficult to monitor.

Relationship with humans

The king vulture is one of the most common species of birds represented in the

Maya codices Maya codices (: ''codex'') are folding books written by the Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya script, Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican Amate, bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes ...

. Its

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

is easily distinguishable by the knob on the bird's beak and by the concentric circles that make up the bird's eyes. Sometimes the bird is portrayed as a god with a human body and a bird head. According to Maya mythology, this god often carried messages between humans and the other gods. It may also be used to represent Cozcacuauhtli, the thirteenth day of the month in the

Aztec calendar The Aztec or Mexica calendar is the calendar, calendrical system used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian era, Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of Mexico, peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the bas ...

(13 Reed). An ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocellata'') was also considered to be the bird depicted, but the hooked bill and wattle point to the raptor. The bird's blood and feathers were also used to cure diseases. The king vulture is also a popular subject on the stamps of the countries within its range. It appeared on a stamp for

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

in 1963,

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

in 1978,

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

in 1979,

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

in 1997,

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

in 1998, and

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

in 1999. Because of its large size and beauty, the king vulture is an attraction at zoos around the world. The king vulture is one of several bird species with an AZA studbook, which is kept by Shelly Collinsworth of the Fort Worth Zoo. ''(subscription required)''

References

External links

King vulture videos
on the Internet Bird Collection

(6 photos) ttp://vireo.acnatsci.org/species_image.php?species=Sarcoramphus+papa Photo-High Res* (for

) with RangeMap {{Authority control king vulture Birds of Central America Birds of South America Birds of the Caribbean king vulture king vulture