Cathartes melambrotus

Geographic Range

Greater yellow-headed vultures ( Cathartes melambrotus ) reside almost exclusively in the Amazon Rainforest in South America. They range as far west as the Andes Mountains in Peru and as far west as the coast of Brazil. These vultures can be found as north as the Venezuelan eastern coast and as far south as the northern tip of Bolivia to the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. Countries within this range are southern Columbia, eastern Venezuela, all of Guyana, all of Suriname, all of French Guiana, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern Bolivia, and northwestern Brazil. Greater yellow-headed vultures do not migrate and stay year round in these areas

• Biogeographic Regions
• neotropical neotropical
  • native native

Habitat

Greater yellow-headed vultures inhabit the undisturbed lowlands in the Amazonian rainforest. They nest in forest with dense canopies. On fragmented landscapes, vultures have deemed suitable ecotone between fragmented forests and cattle fields. There are some sightings of them in costal palm swamps in French Guiana. These vultures avoid human contact, as well as locations where competition with other vultures is high. Elevational ranges for these vultures are sea level (0m) to 1410 m above sea level.

• Habitat Regions
• tropical tropical

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest forest
• rainforest rainforest

• Wetlands
• swamp swamp

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural agricultural

Physical Description

Greater yellow-headed vultures have a distinct featherless golden color on their head. This golden color extends from the posterior of the mandible to the nasal region of the head. The neck of these vultures has a wart-like texture and is featherless as well. The neck is usually a fleshy pale purplish or a greyish pink. The bodies of greater yellow-headed vultures are covered in solid black feathers with some silver feathers underneath the wings. The eyes of these vultures are dark red, while their beaks are white fleshy color. Males and females look alike in terms of feather color and sex-specific reports on weight suggest no difference between sexes. Graves (2016) reports weights ranging from 1300g to 1750g across the species. However, with limited reports on weights, it is unclear if this range is representative of the species.

Greater yellow-headed vultures have a more slimmed and a lot more curved head shape than lesser yellow-headed vultures ( Cathartes burrovianus ). Further, lesser yellow-headed vultures’ neck color can range from the more vibrant colors of yellowish orange to reddish purple.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

Development

The development of greater yellow-headed vultures is not greatly studied. Greater yellow-headed vultures are egg layers and incubation lasts 40 days. The hatchlings are altricial. It takes them 70 to 98 days to fledge. They reach sexual maturity 3 to 5 years. Like all birds, these vultures exhibit determinate growth.

Reproduction

Greater yellow-headed vultures are monogamous breeders. It is unknown if they have a certain ritual while mating, but pheromones could be a part of the mating selection. Their nests are often located on the ground in thick bushes or elevated on cliffsides. One of the few observed in Peru was on a cliffside 55m high above a river, amid dense vegetation and strategically placed away from the threat of predators. It was out of direct sunlight but sheltered from the rain. It is assumed that both parents contribute to building the nest.

• Mating System
• monogamous monogamous

Greater yellow-headed vultures tend to breed only once every two years from September through February. They are monogamous breeders. It is suspected that they have an clutch size of 1 to 3 eggs. The two eggs collected in one expedition that were believed to be greater yellow-headed vultures measured 75.3mm x 49.1mm and 75.9mm x 48.5mm (Monsalvo et al., 2020).

It takes around 40 days for the eggs to hatch. There are no data on hatchling mass. It is unknown when these vultures gain independence from the nest. It takes these vultures 70 to 98 days to fledge and 3-5 years to reach adulthood.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• oviparous oviparous

Both parents of young hatchlings stay by the nest for feeding and protection for the nestling stage. Adults regurgitate food into the mouths of the young. The adults are usually seen around the nest in the mornings, then leaving by the afternoon to scavenge for food. Nothing has been reported about the parental care in the post-fledging stage. Monsalvo et al. (2020) studied the behavior of nestling vultures, and reported that the parents are active around the nest. An adult was witnessed scavenging for food for the nestlings during the day.

• Parental Investment
• male parental care male parental care
• female parental care female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
  • protecting

Lifespan/Longevity

The life span of the greater yellow-headed vultures is 7-8 years in the wild. Life span of these vultures can be threatened by factors in their environment. Most commonly toxins from pesticides in food. Flying into urban buildings, gunshots, infectious diseases, and nutrition disorders are other reasons lifespan can be shortened in the wild. There are not kept in captivity.

Behavior

Greater yellow-headed vultures tend not to scavenge the wilderness in flocks and feed primarily on mammalian carcass in the jungle. When these forage, they fly close to the canopy (less than 100 m off the ground) and glide using updrafts to minimize flight efforts.

These vultures do not vocalize to communicate but they do have the ability to make low grunting and hissing noises along with physical movements to attain the attention of others. For larger carcasses found, it is not uncommon for different species of vultures in the area to come together and sometimes compete for the carcass.

Vultures are territorial birds and refrain from interacting with other species. They tend to stay in a communal roost their entire lives, usually within range of reliable food sources. These vultures inhabit secluded areas with environmental barriers near these food sources.

Greater yellow-headed vultures are not migratory birds. Despite relocation efforts to move them away from airports in Brazil, Novaes et al. (2020) reported that these vultures returned from as far as 200m away. Vultures tend to have a social hierarchy that decides who eats first likely based on family association, age, roosting area, or dominance displays.

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal arboreal
• terricolous
• flies
• glides
• diurnal diurnal
• motile motile
• sedentary sedentary
• territorial territorial
• social social
• dominance hierarchies dominance hierarchies

Home Range

With only anecdotal evidence and misidentifications of this vulture species, no data are reported for home range. It can be inferred they share similar ranges as other vulture congenerics, which can range from 14,000 to 71,000 ha. These vultures aren’t known for being aggressive towards other animals except other vultures when protecting their immediate territory. This territory size has not been reported.

Communication and Perception

With limited a vocal range, these vultures use low hisses, rough coughs and wheezing inhalations and exhalations to communicate. Not much is described about how greater yellow-headed vultures locate food. Like other vulture species, greater yellow-headed vultures primarily use olfaction to find food from great distances - and this species is often the first vulture species to find a carcass in the range. Few of these vultures have adapted to living in rangelands, and depend on cattle carcasses here; these are likely found by visual investigations, as they lack the dense forests to obscure their view. They are capable of using tactile aspects like beaks and talons to build nest and tear up scavenged food items.

• Communication Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

Greater yellow-headed vultures are scavengers and find food with their keen eyesight and acute olfaction. The food consumed by these birds is exclusively dead animals, oftentimes roadkill. It is typical these vultures feed on a carcass one vulture at a time instead of flocking around a carcass in groups. Typically, carcasses consumed are mammals weighing less than 5 kg. One reported mammal consumed was a white-faced spiney tree-rat ( Echimys chysurus ). The dead mammals eaten include sloths and monkeys but carrion items also include fish and snakes. These scavengers also consume other deceased greater yellow-headed vultures. Finally, the few vultures that have adapted to living on rangelands are dependent on cattle carcasses.

• Primary Diet
• carnivore carnivore
  • scavenger scavenger

• Animal Foods
• carrion carrion

Predation

There are no documented cases of greater yellow-headed vultures having any predators as adults. Generically, nestlings and fledgelings could be preyed upon by variety of terrestrial predators.

Ecosystem Roles

Greater yellow-headed vultures are carrion consumers, scavenging the jungle for food. These vultures play an oversized roles in their environments out scavenge all other mammalian scavengers. Adults have no known predators, though juveniles are eaten by larger animals such as jaguars, dogs, and other larger predacious birds.

Greater yellow-headed vultures can get parasites from mosquitoes Culex declarator that can pass avian malaria.

• Ecosystem Impact
• biodegradation biodegradation

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Greater yellow-headed vultures serve a positive impact by eating dead carcass keeping the forest floor clear of rotting animals as well as stopping the spread of diseases. They are reported to be uncommon in the trade market, though it's unclear what parts of the birds are considered valuable.

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Greater yellow-headed vultures have no economic negative impact on humans.

Conservation Status

Greater yellow-headed vultures are classified under the category of “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List. They have no special status on U.S. Migratory Bird Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, CITES, or State of Michigan list.

Their population is listed as being in decline on the IUCN Red List. Habitat loss from fragmentation and destruction is the main cause for the decrease in greater yellow-headed vultures’ populations. Overhunting and contaminated carcasses from toxins and heavy metals decreases food availability.

There are no conservations efforts currently in effect. With the limited research on these vultures, it is hard to put into place necessary conservation practices in the most effective ways. Therefore, basic natural history research on this species is suggested as a conservation baseline and should include studies on reproductive behaviors and social interactions.

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

Contributors

Jasper Boyce (author), Radford University, Natalie May (editor), Radford University, Alexander McVicker (editor), Radford University, Karen Powers (editor), Radford University, Tanya Dewey (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

References

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