Skull shape can predict how extinct vultures fed on carrion
December 19, 2023 8:09 PM Subscribe
Skull shape can predict how extinct vultures fed on carrion. Variations in the skull shape of vultures have been found to coincide with the preferred method each species uses to feed on a carcass.
Learning more about the form and function of living species is helping scientists to understand more about the behavior of extinct birds such as the giant Haast's eagle.
Good stuff. I think "scavengers" get a bad rap because eeeeeuw and people don't care to look at the detail, so they don't. This piece parses scavengers into gulpers, rippers and scrappers and finds {surprise] they have distinct head shapes just as Darwin's finches do.
In the early 19thC there was a ding-dong war by letters about how vultures found something good to eat. One school led by John James Audubon held that birds in general and Turkey Vultures Cathartes aura in particular were unable to smell and hunted solely with their eagle-eyes. He didn't rely on ex cathedra comment: in 1826 he carried out an 'experiment' putting out a) an odour-free stuffed deer-skin in plain sight and b) a decidedly dead, indeed rank, pig covered up with brush; and sat some distance away with a telescope. It's a real crap experiment - more of an anecdote - with not enough data, too many variables, and expecting one particular answer. His vulture savaged the deer and ignored hog . . . case proved . . . not!
Other birders, notably Charles Waterton, waged a "Vultures can SO smell" campaign over the next several years but their experiments were not notably better structured than Audubon's. Over time, the Can-Smell lobby has more or less won the war but only for New World vultures, Old World vultures are widely seen as being if not ansomic at least micro-osmic and use their eyes. Audubon's pig was apparently toooo whiffy.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:13 AM on December 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
In the early 19thC there was a ding-dong war by letters about how vultures found something good to eat. One school led by John James Audubon held that birds in general and Turkey Vultures Cathartes aura in particular were unable to smell and hunted solely with their eagle-eyes. He didn't rely on ex cathedra comment: in 1826 he carried out an 'experiment' putting out a) an odour-free stuffed deer-skin in plain sight and b) a decidedly dead, indeed rank, pig covered up with brush; and sat some distance away with a telescope. It's a real crap experiment - more of an anecdote - with not enough data, too many variables, and expecting one particular answer. His vulture savaged the deer and ignored hog . . . case proved . . . not!
Other birders, notably Charles Waterton, waged a "Vultures can SO smell" campaign over the next several years but their experiments were not notably better structured than Audubon's. Over time, the Can-Smell lobby has more or less won the war but only for New World vultures, Old World vultures are widely seen as being if not ansomic at least micro-osmic and use their eyes. Audubon's pig was apparently toooo whiffy.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:13 AM on December 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
I like how the eagle gets to be “golden” but the buzzard has to be “common.” I suppose there are a lot of wise cracks when the Accipitridae family sits own for every holiday carrion feast.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:54 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:54 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Vulture Sr.: So. You're back.
Vulture Jr.: You win. Don't get a big head about it. (pause) What's there to eat?
Vulture Sr.: Carrion, my wayward son.
posted by otherchaz at 6:34 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Vulture Jr.: You win. Don't get a big head about it. (pause) What's there to eat?
Vulture Sr.: Carrion, my wayward son.
posted by otherchaz at 6:34 AM on December 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
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