Real-world conservation science for your students
  • Home
  • Famiiy Sessions
  • Schools & Homeschoolers
  • Curriculum Standards & Educator Guides
  • About the Book
    • SSTV Book's Team of Contributors
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Investigate Backyard Animals
  • Science of the Seasons
  • What is Conservation Biology
  • Home
  • Famiiy Sessions
  • Schools & Homeschoolers
  • Curriculum Standards & Educator Guides
  • About the Book
    • SSTV Book's Team of Contributors
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Investigate Backyard Animals
  • Science of the Seasons
  • What is Conservation Biology
Search
Picture
Vultures keep ecosystems healthy.  When vultures feed on carrion, they clear away carcasses, leaving only the bones and some fur and hide for decomposers to recycle.  Nature has adapted their stomach acids to destroy harmful bacteria that cause diseases (such as cholera, botulism, anthrax). They don’t get sick from eating bacteria-infested rotting flesh.  Even their excreta (poop) is disease-free.  Only some spores can survive the digestive 
tract.

Article: Vultures Remarkably Tolerant to Deadly Bacteria, Study Reveals By John Barrat in Conservation Biology, Research News, Zoology, November 25, 2014
http://smithsonianscience.org/2014/11/vultures-remarkably-tolerant-to-deadly-bacteria-study-reveals/

PHOTO Copyright: iano50   IAN'S OBSERVATIONS:  These 3, a Raven and 2 Turkey Vultures struck it rich when they came upon this small deer half eaten in a farmers field in British Columbia's interior. The Turkey Vultures usually show up after the predator eats all he can and leaves. Cougars, coyote and possibly wild dogs are in the area.


Picture

















 
 Photo: Jerry Kirkheart  CC BY 2.0 www.flickr.com/photos/jkirkhart35/6209252348 

Turkey vultures can track the scent of its prey by smell.   They can detect carrion even if it’s buried under vegetation.  Odor molecules of ethyl mercaptan (the smelly gas released by animals upon death) flow through their perforated nares (nostrils).




Picture


















Photo  © Patricia Henschen

What's that pink bulge?  It's a crop, a throat pouch, that is filled with food the vulture has just eaten.  The crop is an expandable throat pouch that is part of the esophagus.  Food is  temporarily stored in the crop and partially digested there. It slowly makes  its way to the stomach.  Parents regurgitate the softened food from their crop to feed their chicks.  


Picture
Turkey vultures have bald heads to keep blood, flesh, and parasites from sticking to their heads.   

Above image: NECK FEATHERS PULLED DOWN FOR FEEDING. 
PHOTO: LINDA TANNER CC BY 2.0  www.flickr.com/photos/goingslo/8312173085


LINDA'S OBSERVATIONS: Turkey Vulture On Carcass: 
It is salmon season and fishermen are cleaning their catches on the side of the river, tossing heads and skeletons for the birds to devour. I missed a picture of the Bald Eagle who swooped down to see if there was any meat left on these bones

Some experts believe that New World vultures (vultures that live in the American continents) are more closely related to storks than to raptors.


The vulture lacks a syrinx, the vocal organ of birds. It can only grunt and hiss.  Its hiss is loud and sounds like the suction of a vacuum.  Listen to the sounds of chicks, juveniles and adults at: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Turkey_Vulture/sounds

 Watch & Hear Chicks Hiss at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCc8ZJhAIn8   Video from Raptor Resource Project's Vulture Cam.


It urinates and defecates on its legs to cool itself in hot temperatures because it does not have sweat glands.  

If threatened, turkey vultures will vomit and play dead. They cannot projectile vomit because they have weak jaw muscles.  But the stench of their vomit works to deter predators.  They also vomit to lighten their loads so it's easier to flee danger.

The vulture has weak muscles in its jaw and feet so it cannot carry off prey in its beak or talons.  Its beak is not designed to stab prey.  It can tear small pieces from carrion that has been softened by decomposition, crushed by a vehicle, or opened by other scavengers.  

Turkey vultures are social.  They form large roosts, except during breeding season.
Picture
PHOTO: STEPHEN LITTLE CC BY-NC 2.0 STEPHEN'S OBSERVATIONS: Vultures Take Wing, Lincoln, Virginia. There are nearly 100 vultures in the trees. www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_little/8508084015
Picture


NECK FEATHERS PULLED UP FOR WARMTH.

Photo: RACHID H  CC BY-NC 2.0  Sparta, New Jersey www.flickr.com/photos/rachidh/
6948026280

Picture
Photo Copyright: John Carton. Chicks at 36 days old. Chicks have dark heads.
Picture
Juveniles have dark heads until they are about a year-old. Photo Copyright John Carton, Raptor Resource Project. Juvenile Turkey Vulture
PicturePHOTO: Doug Wertman CC BY 2.0 www.flickr.com/photos/nanoprobe67/6132081090
Turkey vultures angle their wings in a V when soaring to help stabilize their flight on wind currents. They teeter when they soar because their wings are large for their body size.

PicturePhoto Copyright: Oskana Perkins, Shutterstock


















Turkey Vultures pose with wings spread out
 
to dry feathers to get them flight ready. The heat from the sun can also straighten bent feathers.

Picture
Vulture Roost PHOTO COPYRIGHT: MARK RYAN, writer & and photographer, Minneapolis, http://rynoceras.wix.com/mark-ryan-photographics
Copyright 2020:  
Information (text) on this website can be used for educational purposes only.    Information cannot be copied for commercial use.

Copyright of all photos belong to the photographers credited with each image and to the organizations featured on this site.


Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Famiiy Sessions
  • Schools & Homeschoolers
  • Curriculum Standards & Educator Guides
  • About the Book
    • SSTV Book's Team of Contributors
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Investigate Backyard Animals
  • Science of the Seasons
  • What is Conservation Biology