Lappet-faced vultures

During game drives it is not uncommon to see vultures resting in the trees but on this particular day it had been fairly cool and a bit gusty earlier on so there was not much birdlife to see until we spotted a vulture. But not just any vulture – a Lappet-faced vulture. There are two sub-species, and we get the smaller of the two, which is still a large bird, weighing in at about 6kg and with a wingspan of 3m – actually a massive bird! These birds are endangered, due mainly to habitat loss. Lappet-faced vultures are known as Old World vultures whereas a White-backed vulture (which is more common) is known as a New World vulture. The difference is that Old World vultures rely more on their eyesight to spot potential food source while New World vultures have a more advanced sense of smell allowing them to locate a carcass from about 2km away.

As a result the Lappet-faced vulture tends to look out for other vultures descending before it goes to investigate what they have found. If there is indeed a carcass, the Lappet-faced will dominate the carcass if it is a smaller animal or they will wait for the other vultures to feed first if it is a larger animal. They actually prefer to wait for other vultures to finish at a larger carcass rather than competing with them, even though they are one of the largest and most aggressive of the vultures. This is because the Lappet-faced knows it can tear the hide of the larger animals such as elephant as well as feeding on the knotty muscle – something other smaller vulture species cannot do. So the real finishing-off is reserved for them. Due to the size of the vulture they are able to store more food in their crop than the smaller species and they have been recorded with more than 1,5kg stored inside the crop! That’s almost more than a third of their own body weight! Maybe not the best looking animals in the bush, these vultures perform a vital role clearing up any carcasses lying around.