White-backed Vulture
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[Photo] African White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus); Adult vultures eating the carcass of a dead wildebeest in Maasai Mara National Park, Kenya. Date 20th of August, 2007. Author Magnus Kjaergaard.

Copyright (C) 2007 Magnus Kjaergaard Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

The White-backed Vulture, Gyps africanus, is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is closely related to the European Griffon Vulture, G. fulvus. Sometimes, it is called African White-backed Vulture to distinguish it from the Oriental White-backed Vulture - nowadays usually called Indian White-rumped Vulture - with which it was formerly believed to be closely related.

The White-backed Vulture is a typical vulture, with only down feathers on the head and neck, very broad wings and short tail. It has a white neck ruff. The adult’s whitish back contrasts with the otherwise dark plumage. Juveniles are largely dark. This is a medium-sized vulture, its body mass is around 5.4 kg.

Like other vultures it is a scavenger, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals which it finds by soaring over savannah and around human habitation. It often moves in flocks. It breeds in trees on the savannah of west and east Africa, laying one egg. The population is mostly resident.

Rarer than previously believed, it is uplisted from a species of Least Concern to Near Threatened in the 2007 IUCN Red List.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-backed_Vulture

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