Description: Black with white patch near each wing tip, conspicuous in flight; head is bare and grayish; feet extend beyond the short tail. This vulture flaps its shorter and rounder wings more often and more rapidly than the Turkey Vulture.

Range/Habitat: More or less resident from Texas and Arkansas north and east to New Jersey (rarely to Massachusetts and Maine) and south to Florida. Also in American tropics. Habitat varies with scattered woodlots and open fields.

Adaptations: Black Vultures soar on rising thermal currents of air. Their bare head allows it to be cleaned easier after eating carrion. These birds also defecate on their feet to keep themselves cool (when a breeze blows by it acts like natural air conditioning).

Courtship/Gestation/Birth: A clutch of two eggs takes 38 to 41 days to incubate, and the young vultures fledge after 70 to 77 days.

Diet: Carrion (dead stuff) and excrement; they also take weak, sick, or unprotected young birds and mammals. They are smaller but more aggressive than Turkey Vultures and will drive the latter from a carcass.

Card by Henson Robinson Zoo Education Department.

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