Profile
In flight
Birds of Prey
White-rumped Vulture
Gyps bengalensis
- mythic
- 80 km/h
- Critically Endangered
Once the most abundant large raptor on Earth, blackened to skeletal numbers by a single cattle painkiller in barely a decade. The skies above the subcontinent grew quiet, and the work it used to do for us went undone.
- Population
- around 6,000 mature individuals and still recovering from collapse
- Habitat
- open plains, agricultural land, light woodland and village edges across South Asia, nesting in tall trees
- Diet
- carrion, almost exclusively large mammal carcasses
- Size
- 0.85 m
- Wingspan
- 2.2 m
