Rüppell's Griffon
Gyps rueppelli
Huge vulture, slightly smaller than Eurasian Griffon. Adults have dark-bodied with pale feather tips on body and shoulders, giving them a scaled appearance; also note pale bill and eye. Juveniles are dark with a characteristic pale bar on the leading edge of the underwings and have a black bill and dark eyes. Nests on cliffs and is generally silent except when squabbling at carcasses. Often encountered foraging over grasslands and soaring along cliffs and ridgelines.
Identification
The Rüppell's vulture is a large vulture, noticeably outsizing the closely related white-backed vulture, with which they often occur in the wild. Adults are 85 to 103 cm (33 to 41 in) long, with a wingspan of 2.26 to 2.6 m (7 ft 5 in to 8 ft 6 in), and a weight that ranges from 6.4 to 9 kg (14 to 20 lb). Both sexes look alike: mottled brown or black overall with a whitish-brown underbelly and thin, dirty-white fluff covering the head and neck. The base of the neck has a white collar, the eye is yellow or amber, the crop patch deep brown. The head does not have feathers. This is an adaptation that occurred because of the Rüppell vulture's tendency to stick its head inside of its prey when eating. Without the adaptation, feeding would become extremely messy. Silent as a rule, they become vocal at their nest and when at a carcass, squealing a great deal. Rüppell's vultures commonly fly at altitudes as high as 6,000 m (20,000 ft). The birds have a specialized variant of the hemoglobin alphaD subunit; this protein has a great affinity for oxygen, which allows the species to absorb oxygen efficiently despite the low partial pressure in the upper troposphere. A Rüppell's vulture was confirmed to have been ingested by a jet engine of an airplane flying over Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 29 November 1973 at an altitude of 11,300 m (37,000 ft).
Taxonomy
Genus: Gyps; Family: Accipitridae; Order: Accipitriformes.
- Scientific name
- Gyps rueppelli
- Authority
- (Brehm, AE, 1852)
- Order
- Accipitriformes
- Family
- Accipitridae
- Genus
- Gyps
Range and habitat
Rüppell's vulture is distributed throughout the Sahel region and East Africa, where it inhabits grasslands, mountains, and woodlands. Once considered common in these habitats, it is experiencing steep declines, especially in the western portion of the range.
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Migration pattern: Complete migrants.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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