One of the 6 old world vultures on WAnimals

Birds · Accipitriformes · Accipitridae

Indian Vulture

Gyps indicus

Critically Endangered

It faces an extremely high risk of imminent extinction in the wild. See full glossary

The Indian vulture, or long-billed vulture, is an accipitriform bird of the family Accipitridae in grave danger of extinction. This member of the family Accipitridae inhabits only certain mountainous areas of India and other countries of South-East Asia. Some authors hold that the Cambodian populations form a separate species, Gyps tenuirostris, the slender-billed vulture. No subspecies are known.

Weight

5.5 kg – 6.3 kg

Size

80 cm – 1 m

Lifespan

30 years

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Diurnal

Active mainly during the day.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Very hard

7countries20parks43same family

Fun facts

  • Its collapse was the fastest documented in any bird: from tens of millions of individuals to a few thousand in little more than a decade, caused by a veterinary anti-inflammatory that gave them acute kidney failure.
  • Its disappearance had enormous public health consequences in India: livestock carcasses left unconsumed by vultures fed an explosion of feral dogs, and several studies link that increase to tens of thousands of additional human deaths from rabies.
  • The towers of silence of the Parsi community, where vultures traditionally consumed the dead, were left without birds and forced the rethinking of a rite more than a thousand years old.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type
Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)
Habitat & environment
Rock faces, ruins and large trees on the plains and hills of the Indian subcontinent
Sexual maturity
5 years
Gestation / incubation
50 days of incubation
Litter / clutch size
1 egg

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyps_indicus

Where to watch it

Parques y spots de buceo donde se ha documentado esta especie — se muestran 10 de 20 documentados.

Related species

Other species in the catalogue with the most in common with Indian Vulture — same habitat, park, country, tags or family.

How to help

The indian vulture is classified as critically endangered. Organizations such as UICN, WWF y Wildlife Conservation Society work specifically on its conservation and that of its habitat; looking into their programs is a good starting point if you want to get involved.

It's documented in 10 real protected areas — part of why protecting these places matters for its conservation.

Keep exploring

Based on what we already know about indian vulture.

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