Greater Yellow-headed Vulture

Big Yellow -headed Vulture ( Cathartes melambrotus )

The Greater Yellow -headed Vulture ( Cathartes melambrotus ) is a member of the New World vultures ( Cathartidae ). He lives disjoint in the northern and central South America. It has been suggested that the species is a Allospezies the little yellow-headed vulture ( Cathartes burrovianus ). Both species are sympatric but before.

Features

The Greater Yellow -headed Vulture is 64-76 cm long and about 1650 grams. It reaches a wingspan from 1.66 to 1.78 meters, its tail is 25 to 29 cm long. Males reach the same size as the females. The plumage is jet black and shines more than the little yellow-headed vulture. In Flight Picture taken from below the bird is black, the wings and tail brownish gray, the inner primaries are brighter. Their wings are wider than that of the little yellow-headed vulture, her tail longer. The head is bare and yellow, orange on the neck. The scalp is wrinkled. The crest and the skin from the eyes are blue-gray. The beak is whitish to pink. The legs are dirty white, the feet darker.

Juveniles are less whitish neck.

Dissemination

The Greater Yellow -headed Vulture lives in pristine rain forests in the Amazon region and avoids open landscapes and affected by felling forests. On the eastern edge of the Andes he goes up to a height of 700 meters. The area in which it has been demonstrated, is divided. At the lower Amazon, he only lives south of the river, on the middle and upper Amazon just north of the stream. It also comes in southwestern Colombia, southern Venezuela, in the Orinoco, Guyana, Suriname and the eastern lowlands of Peru before. A small, possibly isolated occurrence is located in the middle of the Bolivian lowlands.

Way of life

Large yellow-headed vulture looking individually, rarely in small groups at the level of the treetops flying by dead carcasses of medium-sized mammals such as monkeys, sloths or opossums. The carrion, they track down with their well-developed sense of smell. On the cadaver he is dominant over the living in the same area turkey vulture. The Flight of the Great Yellow-headed Vulture is much stronger and less rocking than the little yellow-headed vulture. Large yellow-headed vultures roosting on free-standing branches of large trees, along with other vultures.

Their reproductive biology is unknown. A brooding pair has never been observed, a copulating in August.

The species is not endangered and is in the Colombian part of Amazonia in pristine forests of the common people from the vultures.