Vultures in Costa Rica
By Annemarie Silkens
Many people are a bit creeped out by vultures because of their specific appearance and the fact that they eat cadavers. However, vultures are indispensable to nature; they are real cleaners. Read all about vultures and why they are indispensable to the ecosystem here.
How do you recognize a vulture?
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First of all, mainly by their bald heads. This is not random, nature has thought about this. A head without feathers is relatively easy to clean, which is handy and necessary after the vulture has rooted its head in a cadaver. This bald head of vultures also plays an important role in their thermoregulation. During cold weather, many vultures tuck their heads between their feathers with their shoulders raised. When it is hot, they spread their wings and stretch out their necks. This allows them to regulate their body temperature.
- Secondly, you can recognize vultures by their large body with broad wings. The wing muscles are rather weak in proportion to their body weight. This is why you usually see them hovering on thermals. Therefore, you will not often see them flying in the early morning. Once the air has warmed up, you often see them hovering in groups. Then they are looking for carcasses to eat.
Scavengers
Usually vultures circle above a found carcass for a time before descending. They generally have weak legs, so they rarely fly away with carrion in their talons.
Most species of vultures rarely if ever attack their prey. They eat dead animals, preferablly fresh. Their strong gastric juices can eliminate harmful bacteria and viruses found on such carcasses. Because of this, vultures fulfill an important role in the ecosystem. Namely, they help keep nature clean, and prevent the spread of deadly diseases.
Vultures often cover their legs with feces. This feces contains a corrosive uric acid that kills bacteria. This offers them protection when they walk over a carcass. Just goes to show how ingenious nature is.
Vultures in Costa Rica
- Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture (58-64 cm, wingspan about 160 cm)
- Black Vulture (Raven Vulture)
- Turkey Vulture (Red headed vulture)
- King vulture (71-85 cm, wingspan 180-200 cm)
The vultures in Costa Rica belong to the family Cathartidae (turkey and yellow-headed vultures), the vultures of the New World. They are found throughout most of North and South America. They use their sense of smell when searching for food. Hovering above the treetops of the rainforest, they can find rotting carcasses lying invisible under the canopy
Vultures cooperate
Not all vulture species have such a well-developed sense of smell. Other vultures find their food by keeping a close eye on turkey vultures, for example. When the turkey vultures go down, the other species follow. However, turkey vultures have a weaker beak, which prevents them from tearing larger and tough carcasses well. For this, they need the more powerful king vultures. In this way, turkey vultures can also easily reach the meat, so this interaction benefits both species. Vultures primarily descend on fresh carcasses. New World vultures do not build nests; they lay their eggs on bare ground, often on rocks.
Black Vulture
The black vulture easily adapts to conditions. It is a common species found in many different biotopes, including forests, coastal areas and savannas, as well as urban areas. However, they avoid dense rain forests and mountain areas.
Black vultures live in large groups. They are very bold and also frequent the outskirts of cities or garbage dumps. They find their food with their eyes and sometimes allow themselves to be led to food by the Red-headed Vulture. They like rotting food. They also like to eat fruits and nuts, or eggs, lizards and young birds. Parents may keep food in their crop so they can break it out to feed to their young.
King Vulture
The King Vulture lives in pairs or small groups of 5 individuals at most. At large carcasses, sometimes as many as 50 King Vultures come to feast together. The King Vulture can detect carrion with its sense of smell. It has a powerful beak with which it can process all kinds of carrion. Furthermore, it also catches live prey such as mice, small birds and lizards.
While feeding, the King Vulture is vulnerable to large predators such as jaguars and pumas. Due to its large body, the bird is unable to quickly detach from the ground and fly away.
Red-headed Vulture
The Red-headed Vulture lives mainly in open and semi-open areas such as forests, brushwood or meadows. It also likes to stay near water such as rivers, lakes or the ocean coast. The Red-headed Vulture has a good sense of smell, which also allows it to find carcasses lying under leaves. Its food consists mainly of carcasses; it rarely, if ever, kills its prey. The Red-headed Vulture prefers to eat fresh carrion. Because it does not have a strong beak, it sometimes has to wait to eat until the skin has decayed enough. The Red-headed Vulture often flies low above the ground, or even below the upper layer of trees.
Its main form of self-defense is regurgitating half-digested food. The smell keeps most predators at bay. If an enemy is nearby, the red-headed vulture will attempt to vomit in its face. Like many other vultures, the red-headed vulture also sometimes regurgitates its food in order to fly away more easily.
Lesser yellow-headed vulture
The little yellow-headed vulture’s menu consists almost entirely of carrion, including road kill and washed-up fish. Insects and other invertebrates are also eaten, so the Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture is frequently found in recently plowed land, where the critters are easy to find. The Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture has a well-developed sense of smell, which it uses when searching for carcasses. The Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture usually lives solitary.
Indispensable to the entire ecosystem
As mentioned, due to their role as cleaners of nature and destroyers of bacteria and viruses living on carcasses, vultures are indispensable to the entire ecosystem.
Unfortunately, the habitat of this mighty bird is under pressure, due to large-scale deforestation. This is why it is so important that local conservationists can purchase pieces of land with support. Fortunately, this is happening more and more often, so that illegal logging can be prevented and larger areas are protected from the construction of large-scale plantations.
Do you also want to contribute to conservation? Help us and adopt a piece of rainforest. Every piece of protected rainforest helps.
Want to read more about other species of birds, animals and news from the foundation in Costa Rica? Then read our other blog posts.