bbc.co.uk navigation

Ruppell's griffon vulture

Ruppell's vulture

Ruppell's vultures, named after a German explorer, are large African vultures. Much of their day is spent soaring in the air on thermal currents, at some surprisingly high altitudes, and using their keen eyesight to spot long forgotten carcasses. They home in on the carcass in flocks and with all the tasty flesh gone, these scavengers will eat what's left over, using their powerful hooked beaks to tear skin and break bones with ease. A decline in the range of these very social birds is partly a result of their being used in black magic.

Scientific name: Gyps rueppellii

Rank: Species

Common names:

  • Rueppell's vulture,
  • Ruppell's griffon,
  • Ruppell's griffon vulture

Watch video clips from past programmes (1 clip)

In order to see this content you need to have an up-to-date version of Flash installed and Javascript turned on.

Distribution

Map showing the distribution of the Ruppell's vulture taxa

Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.

The Ruppell's vulture can be found in a number of locations including: Africa. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.

Habitats

The following habitats are found across the Ruppell's vulture distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.

Tropical grassland Tropical grassland
Tropical grasslands include the savanna usually associated with Africa, and savanna-type grasslands found in India, Australia, Nepal and the Americas. They are characterised by drought-resistant shrubs and grasses, dotted with trees such as acacias or baobabs.

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

Conservation Status

Near Threatened

  1. EX - Extinct
  2. EW
  3. CR - Threatened
  4. EN - Threatened
  5. VU - Threatened
  6. NT
  7. LC - Least concern

Population trend: Decreasing

Year assessed: 2008

Classified by: IUCN 3.1

About

Rüppell's Vulture (Gyps rueppellii) is a large vulture that occurs throughout the Sahel region of central Africa. The current population of 30,000 is in decline due to ongoing loss of habitat and other pressures. Also known as Rüppell's Griffon, Rueppell's Griffon, Rüppell's Griffin Vulture, Rueppell's Vulture and other variants, Rüppell's Vulture is named in honor of Eduard Rüppell, a 19th-century German explorer, collector and zoologist. Rüppell's Vulture is considered to be the world's highest-flying bird, with confirmed evidence of a flight at an altitude of 11,000 metres (36,100 ft) above sea level.

Read more at Wikipedia

This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. If you find the content in the 'About' section factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia. For more information on our use of Wikipedia please read our FAQ.

Video collections

Take a trip through the natural world with our themed collections of video clips from the natural history archive.

  • Nature's record breakers Nature's record breakers

    Animal kingdom record breakers - how fast can a cheetah run, how heavy is an elephant and what's bigger than a dinosaur? Watch amazing video clips from the BBC archive and uncover the fascinating facts about our smallest primate, the longest stick insect and the most venomous snake.

More …

BBC © 2012 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.