All species › New World vultures
New World vultures | Cathartiformes
Nieuwewereldgieren | Buitres del Nuevo Mundo
New World vultures are large scavengers with a bare, unfeathered head and neck, which keeps bacteria from rotting food off the plumage. The legs are relatively weak and the claws blunt, better suited to walking than to seizing prey — nothing is killed, only what is already dead is eaten. Unlike most birds they have a well-developed sense of smell, which some species use to find carrion hidden beneath a forest canopy. Broad wings let them soar for hours on rising thermals with little flapping while they scan the landscape below. No nest is built: the clutch is laid in a rock crevice, hollow tree or on bare ground, and the downy chick stays there, fed by the parents.
Families in this order
- New World vultures | Cathartidae3 speciesThis family was long grouped with the storks on the strength of shared outward traits, but more recent DNA evidence places it closer to the diurnal birds of prey; what does unite the family is a sense of smell unusually keen for a bird. The family lacks the muscles in the voice box that most birds use to produce sound, so its vocal repertoire is limited to hoarse hisses and grunts rather than calls or song. When overheated or threatened, the birds spray their own legs with liquid droppings; the evaporation cools the body, and the dried layer also protects the skin from bacteria picked up while walking through carrion. An intruder that gets too close is driven off not with the bill or claws but with a forceful, well-aimed jet of vomit, which has the added benefit of leaving the bird light enough to take off quickly.