The king vulture is a large bird found in Central and South America. It is the only surviving member of the genus Sarcoramphus. The species name is derived from Latin word papa, alluding the bird’s plumage resembling the clothing of one. King vultures were popular figures in the Mayan codices.
About King vulture in brief
The king vulture is a large bird found in Central and South America. It is the only surviving member of the genus Sarcoramphus. King vultures were popular figures in the Mayan codices as well as in local folklore and medicine. Although currently listed as least concern by the IUCN, they are decreasing in number, due primarily to habitat loss. The bird’s closest living relative is the Andean condor, Vultur gryphus. The species name is derived from Latin word papa, alluding the bird’s plumage resembling the clothing of one. The king vulture is a scavenger and it often makes the initial cut into a fresh carcass. It also displaces smaller New World vulture species from a carcass and eats its fill while they wait. The name is a reference to its habit of displacing smaller vulturs and eating its fill as it waits for the larger birds to arrive. It was also known as the \”white crow\” by the Spanish in Paraguay. It had a wider distribution in the past in southwestern North America during the mid-Pliocene, some 3.2–5.2 million years ago. The only material is a broken distalerus humerus fossil, found at Pozo Creek, California, as per Loye Hoye Miller’s original description. The fossil suggests the vulture might be distinct, but might be as distinct as the two species of vulture in the Kernan faunal stages of the Delmontian faunan stage of the Pleistocene.
It might be a distinct species in the general form and curvature except for its greater size and robustness with the types conforms to the general types in general, except for the greater curvature in general in its types. It has a diploid chromosome number of 80, which today contains only theKing vulture, which was a little-known component of the Blancan vulture, some 3-2–2 years ago, but may be distinct in the time span between the existence of these two species. The genus name is often misspelled as Sarcorhamphus, improperly retaining the Greek rough breathing despite agglutination with the previous word-element. Some authors have even put these species in a separate subfamily, though most authors consider this subdivision unnecessary. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New WorldVultures from Ciconiiformes and instead placed them in Incertae sedis, but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible. The New World Vultures are more closely related to storks than the Old World vultured, according to the South American classification committee, but this is still under debate. The vulture was called cozcacuauhtli in Nahuatl, derived from cozcatl \”collar\” and cuauhtl \”bird of prey\”.
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This page is based on the article King vulture published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
