Indiengeier

Bestimmung

The Indian vulture is bulky and medium in size. Its body and covert feathers are pale brown with darker flight feathers. It has white thighs with scattered white fluff and broad wings with short tail feathers. It has a small, bare, dark-brown head with a long featherless neck, dark eyes and a long yellowish beak with a pale green-yellow cere. It is 89–103 cm (35–41 in) long and has a wing span of 2.22–2.58 m (7 ft 3 in – 8 ft 6 in). <p>The bald heads allow them to maintain body temperature in response to the environment. When it is cold, they tuck their necks in closer to their bodies to keep them warm and when it is hot, they extend their necks. Indian vultures have very few feathers on their heads which help them to keep their heads clean when they stick them into the rotting carcasses to feed. <p>It weighs 5.5–6.3 kg (12–14 lb) and is comparatively smaller than the Eurasian griffon. It is distinguished from that species by its less bulky body and wing coverts.

Taxonomie

The Indian vulture is placed in the genus Gyps (old world vultures), and gets both its common and specific scientific names from its nativity to the Indian subcontinent. The genus name is from Ancient Greek gups meaning "vulture" and the species name is Neo-Latin indicus from the Ancient Greek "indikós" meaning "Indian".<p>The slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) was a sub-species of Indian vulture until 2001. Based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA evidence, it was separated into a different species from the Indian vulture in 2001.

Wissenschaftlicher Name

Gyps indicus

Autorität

(Scopoli, 1786)

Ordnung

Accipitriformes

Familie

Accipitridae

Gattung

Gyps

Verbreitung und Lebensraum

The range of the Indian vulture extended from southeastern Pakistan to south India and to Indochina and the northern Malay Peninsula in the east. It is now extinct in South East Asia with current populations existing mostly in central and peninsular India, south of the Gangetic plains. It is also found in southwest Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.<p>It is also found in various land-forms ranging from semi-desert to dry foot hills, open fields and cultivable lands near villages, near garbage dumps and slaughter houses in urban areas. They are not migratory but travel hundreds of miles in a day scavenging for food. Indian vultures nest on cliffs or high buildings and rarely on trees.

Zugverhalten

Standvogel

Verhalten

Zugverhalten: Standvogel.

Schutzstatus

Bestandstrend: rückläufig.

Bestandstrend

rückläufig