Wildlife
Lammergeier
Lammergeiers are long-winged vultures known for their unusual habit of dropping bones on to rocks to smash them open and get at the marrow. They have a widespread distribution in the mountains of Europe, Asia and Africa, and are common in the mountainous highlands of Ethiopia.
Scientific name: Gypaetus barbatus
Rank: Species
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High-altitude animals
Living Planet
The lammergeier, red-billed chough and tahr live in the highest Himalayas.
The lammergeier, red-billed chough and tahr live in the highest Himalayas.
Smashing scavengers
Living Planet
Lammergeiers outdo ravens at breaking bones into edible morsels.
Lammergeiers outdo ravens at breaking bones into edible morsels.
Bone breakers
Wild Africa
Highly specialised vultures want just one thing from a carcass, bones!
With a wingspan of 2 metres, the lammergeiers soar across the skies over the mountains. Picking out the bones from a carcass, they smash them against rocks to expose the nutritious bone marrow. Young birds need plenty of practise, it can take a full seven years to get bone breaking mastered.
Habitats
The following habitats are found across the Lammergeier distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Desert
Mediterranean forest
Mountain grassland
Moorland
Mountains
Tropical coniferous forestBehaviours
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Carnivorous
Courtship display
Adapted to flying
Altitude tolerant
Monogamous
Moulting
Egg layer
Parental investment
Scavenger
Visual communicationAdditional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Conservation Status
Least Concern
- EX - Extinct
- EW
- CR - Threatened
- EN - Threatened
- VU - Threatened
- NT
- LC - Least concern
Year assessed: 2009
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
About
The Lammergeier, Lammergeyer, or Bearded Vulture, Gypaetus barbatus ("Bearded Vulture-Eagle"), is the only member of the genus Gypaetus. Traditionally considered an Old World vulture, it actually forms a minor lineage of Accipitridae together with the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), its closest living relative. They are not much more closely related to the Old World vultures proper than to, for example, hawks, and differ from the former by their feathered neck. Although quite dissimilar, Egyptian and Bearded Vultures both have a lozenge-shaped tail that is unusual among birds of prey.
It eats mainly carrion and lives and breeds on crags in high mountains in southern Europe, North Africa, Southern Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, and Tibet, laying one or two eggs in mid-winter which hatch at the beginning of spring. Populations are resident.
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Classification
- Life
- Animals
- Vertebrates
- Birds
- Birds of prey
- Hawk and eagle family
- Gypaetus
- Lammergeier
BBC News about Lammergeier
- Bearded Vultures 'seen in India' About 200 Bearded Vultures have been spotted in a remote part of India's Himachal Pradesh state, reports say.
- Birds unveil 'silver wings'
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Elsewhere on the web
- Animal Diversity Web (animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu)
- Conservation and research efforts (africanconservation.org)
- Birdlife International: fact sheet (birdlife.org)
- Hellenic Ornithological Society: fact file (ornithologiki.gr)
- Bearded Vulture (wikipedia.org)
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