Interesting Turkey Vulture Facts

1 They aren’t turkeys

There are over 20 species of birds known as vultures, and their taxonomy is a bit muddled. The Old-World vultures are relatively straightforward, but there is a group of American birds whose relationship with them is still under assessment. Turkey vultures are part of this group, and so named because they have red, featherless heads, sort of like a turkey. This is the only reason, though, and not because they’re remotely related to turkeys, or even that they really eat turkeys, although they probably would if they showed up at Thanksgiving and everyone had left it just sitting there at the table. 

2 They’re New-World Vultures

Old World vultures are the ones related to eagles and buzzards and other raptors, whose prey drive has mostly worn off and who are happy to scavenge carrion from animals with more energy to hunt, and then there are the ones in the Americas, whose origin is a bit hard to determine. Turkey vultures are vultures, but they’re New World vultures, and these were once thought to be a branch of storks that have picked up a taste for rotting meat. 

However, recent DNA research suggests they might be more related to the first group than we thought, and that New World vultures may indeed be a sister group to the Accipitriformes, or raptor order. Regardless, turkey vultures are one of about seven species of New World vultures, so named for their distribution across the Americas.

3 They’re very adaptable 

As far as the distribution of this species goes, it’s the most widespread vulture in the Americas. They range from Southern Canada, all the way down into South America, and most places in between. They achieve this incredible range by being highly adaptable as a species and can be comfortable in anything from arid, open areas to thicker woodlands and forests. 

Its habitat preference is a mix of these two extremes, and it will happily scavenge meat from various sources within it. They’ll also thrive amid human refuse and can eat what gets thrown away in the cities. But they’ll also kill things on occasion, such as young birds or sick mammals. They’ll even eat plant matter like pumpkins and coconuts, increasing their option across a range of circumstances. 

4 They forage by smell

This is uncommon in the bird world, where sight is typically used. Turkey vultures will hover low to the ground to detect the odor of ethyl mercaptan, a gas created by the start of decay in dead animals. Due to this, other birds such as black vultures and condors will follow the turkey vulture to find carcasses.

5 They’re the most migratory of the NW vultures

Not only do these vultures thrive across the continents, they move through them, too. They’re considered partial migrants because some populations move more than others. Populations in the North migrate more, coming down from the cold during Winter and heading back up when it’s more temperate. The longest trips are from the Western US down to Mexico and South America, and some of these trips can include thousands of birds.

6 They’re posers

Turkey vultures display a behavior that’s known as Horaltic pose. This is basically a power stance with the wings spread wide, and researchers can’t agree on exactly why it’s happening.  Some suggest it’s a way of drying the bird’s wings, warming the body, or getting UV treatment for parasites they might have. It’s much more common after damp nights, so it could have a thermoregulating component to it, but whatever it is, it looks really cool!

7 They pee on their own legs 

Speaking of cool, these birds engage in urohidrosis, which is a fun way to say they pee on themselves. Since they can’t sweat, wet bird excreter functions as a medium for evaporative cooling, and is released onto the bald skin of the legs, which they do in public and even at social gatherings, suggesting they’re just no shame in it in their community.

8 They feed chicks by regurgitating

Turkey vultures will typically lay two eggs on cliffs, caves or rock crevices. Chicks will hatch 30-40 days later and be cared for by both parents for 10-11 weeks. During this time, adults will regurgitate food for them until they leave the nest between 8-11 weeks.

9 They’ve had a bad time

Wetting your legs with your own waste is enough to ruin a relationship but the image issues these vultures have faced among the human populations don’t stem from their pooping habits. Many used to believe these carrion feeders brought disease with them, and some thought it would kill livestock, so they have been persecuted historically, despite the fact that neither is true. 

In fact, this species is complicit in the reduction of disease by way of removing waste and rotting meat from the system. In the United States, turkey vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which makes killing them illegal.

10 They’re doing fine

And despite their troubles, this species is doing great. It’s estimated that there are over 18 million individuals left, covering an incredible range of over 28 million square kilometers. This is one of the most abundant raptorial birds in the world.

SOURCE: FACTANIMAL

I found this article on Reader’s Digest and wanted to share!

From Reader’s Digest:

Dolly the sheep proved cloning was possible

On July 5, 1996, this fuzzy little bundle of joy emerged from the belly of one of her three mothers, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Dolly’s birth proved that a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, a technique in which the cell nucleus from an adult cell is transferred into an unfertilized egg, blasted with electricity, then implanted into a surrogate, could work. Dolly died of a lung disease at age six, but the cloning technique used to produce her was later employed on other larger mammals, including pigs, deer, horses, and bulls.

Cher Ami the pigeon saved hundreds of American troops

During World War I, this homing pigeon lived up to her name and was a “dear friend” to the American troops. Cher Ami delivered 12 messages during her service to the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France, but none was more important than the missive she delivered in early October 1918. On that day, Major Charles White Whittlesey and more than 500 men were trapped behind enemy lines without food or ammunition.  Afraid that his battalion would be killed by friendly fire, Whittlesey attempted to send messages to his compatriots via pigeon. The first two birds were shot down, but Cher Ami successfully navigated a barrage of fire to deliver this message: “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it.” The shelling stopped and the troops were saved. Cher Ami received the Croix de Guerre medal for bravery. Upon her death in 1919, her body was preserved and placed on display at the Smithsonian Institute.

David Greybeard revealed chimpanzees’ true intelligence

Until 1960, scientists believed that humans alone possessed the ability to make and use tools. But on November 4 of that year, Jane Goodall observed a chimpanzee she had named David Greybeard using a grass stalk to extract termites from a termite hill. Later, Goodall observed David Greybeard and another chimp constructing fishing tools by stripping the leaves off twigs. “[David] was the first chimpanzee who let me come close, who lost his fear,” Goodall told Bill Moyers in 2011. “He helped introduce me to this magic world out in the forest.”

Elsa the lioness inspired wildlife conservation

In 1956, George Adamson, a game warden in Kenya, and his wife Joy adopted a small lion cub they named Elsa. For years, the Adamsons raised and cared for Elsa at their home in Africa, teaching her to hunt on her own and develop the abilities to survive in the wild. Eventually, the couple released Elsa and, surprisingly, she survived. In 1960, Joy wrote a non-fiction book, Born Free, about the experience of raising Elsa. Six years later, a movie based on the book was released to wide acclaim and is credited with promoting wildlife conservation to the general public.

Balto the dog delivered life-saving serum

In 1925, doctors in Alaska faced a deadly dilemma. A diphtheria epidemic was poised to sweep through Nome, Alaska, a city on the state’s far west coast, and the only serum that could save them was in Seattle. Unable to deliver the medicine by plane, officials devised a long-shot alternative: They would use multiple dog sled teams to transport the antitoxin to the village. The team assigned the final leg was led by Balto, a black and white Siberian husky, who ran through a blizzard in the dead of night to deliver the serum. Upon reaching the town in the early morning of February 2, 1925, Balto’s owner Gunter Kaasen uttered a mere three words: “Damn fine dog.”

Jim the horse impressed a president

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the variety show performed by Beautiful Jim Key and his trainer/owner Dr. William Key, was seen by an estimated ten million Americans and written about in every major newspaper. Not bad for a sickly quarter horse and a former slave. Through Bill’s humane training techniques, Beautiful Jim Key “learned” to read, write, spell, add, tell time, sort mail, and use a cash register and telephone—skills he performed in front of delighted audiences across the country. At a time when African-Americans and whites rarely interacted, Beautiful Jim Key’s shows brought them together. When President William McKinley saw one of the Keys’ performances at an exposition in Tennessee, he declared, “This is the most astonishing and entertaining exhibition I have ever witnessed.”

Smoky the dog became a war hero

There’s no shortage of stories of dogs performing heroic acts during wartime. But Smoky wasn’t a husky, or a Newfoundland, or a big, bulky dog saving the day. She was a Yorkie! During World War II, American soldiers were under attack on an airfield in the Philippines. The only way they could communicate from the airfield was by running telephone lines through an underground pipe. Getting humans to place the lines would’ve been challenging and dangerous, so it was Smoky to the rescue! She belonged to a corporal, who called her and helped her find the way through the pipe with the wires attached to her collar. In addition to saving as many as 250 people’s lives by allowing the construction of the communication line, Smoky was also just a morale booster and a calming, happy presence to have around for the soldiers and for hospital patients. She is remembered as one of the earliest-ever therapy dogs.

Pickles the collie thwarted a robbery

And a high-profile robbery, no less. In 1966, the Jules Rimet trophy (the precursor to the FIFA World Cup trophy) was stolen from its supposedly-secure location in London’s Central Hall shortly before the start of the World Cup. The British detectives on the case all came up empty. High-profile companies offered rewards to anyone who found the trophy. And then, a week after the cup disappeared, a man named David Corbett was walking his dog in a South London neighborhood when the pup, Pickles, started sniffing around underneath a bush. Corbett came over to investigate, and, sure enough, the Jules Rimet trophy was tucked underneath, wrapped in newspaper. For his find, Pickles received a silver medal from the National Canine Defense League and even appeared in a spy film called The Spy with a Cold Nose. It’s especially incredible considering that Pickles wasn’t a police dog, or specially trained in any way—he was a regular pet!

Snowball the cat helped solve a murder

In 1994, a murder case rocked the small Prince Edward Island, located off the coast of Canada. A 32-year-old woman named Shirley Duaguay went missing, and her body was found months later. Most people believed that her estranged husband, who was known to be abusive, was to blame. However, there was no evidence to convict him. That is until someone found a bag in the woods containing a blood-stained jacket, sneakers, and some white cat hairs. The victim’s husband, Douglas Beamish, owned a white cat named Snowball. A geneticist at the United Cancer Institute ran a DNA test and matched the cat hairs from the bag with Snowball’s DNA. Paired with some evidence from the victim’s body, Snowball’s “testimony” was enough to convict Beamish. It was the first time non-human DNA was used in a murder case. Since then, pet DNA has helped solve many violent crimes.

Montauciel the sheep was one of the world’s first aeronauts

Long before Sputnik, Laika the Soviet space dog, and even the Wright brothers, there was Montauciel the sheep and his fowl companions. In the 1700s, people wanted to test to see if humans could withstand time spent at high altitudes. There had already been several unmanned hot air balloon flights, and in 1783, the first flight containing a land animal took off. Montauciel the sheep went up in the balloon, accompanied by a duck (a bird already used to high altitudes) and a rooster (a flightless bird). The scientists believed that if a sheep could survive the trip, so could a human. The animals all returned unharmed…mostly. Montauciel apparently kicked the rooster before the balloon took off, the big bully. (Fun fact: his name means “ascend into the sky” in French.)

SOURCE: RD.COM; BETH DREHER and MEGHAN JONES

It’s October again…time for all things creepy.  This giant camel spider fits the bill!

From All That’s Interesting:

The camel spider is everything that arachnophobes fear. It’s ugly, huge, and the subject of many a tall tale. The myths surrounding this creature were popularized in 2003, at the height of the Iraq war, when American soldiers began spotting its spindly body in the unforgiving Middle Eastern desert.

Prior to terrorizing the troops, though, the critter was the subject of many a fable told by the Persians who first laid eyes on it. But despite its fearsome appearance, the camel spider (which actually isn’t really a spider) is harmless to humans. What’s more, it only lives for one year in the wild — and spends most of its time in hiding from the blistering sun.

The Camel Spider Isn’t Really a Spider

The camel spider actually belongs to the class Arachnida and is correctly known as the solifugae. And despite its catch-all name, the solifugae is actually comprised of more than 1,000 species in more than 150 described genera. Though frequently confused for both scorpions and spiders, they’re technically not either one. They’re cousins with pseudoscorpions and mites.

According to National Geographic, the Persians would often tell tales of this fearsome-looking creature standing impossibly tall, running through the desert like a whirlwind, and feasting on the corpses of humans and camels that dared to cross its path. While invariably cool-sounding, it’s actually not true. Camel spiders don’t feast on humans, camels, or any other large mammal. Instead, the solifugae — which is sometimes also known as the wind scorpion or the sun spider — only stands about six inches in length at full maturity. And despite further tales of its “fast and furious” speed, its top speed is 10 miles per hour — just slightly faster than the average human.

The Camel Spider Has a Voracious Appetite

While the camel spider is harmless to humans, bugs don’t stand a chance against it. A review of the solifugae diet by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science reveals that it loves to feast on wasps, termites, beetles, and silverfish.

And it’s not just critters that solifugae love to feast on: it also loves other insects, small birds, and even small snakes. If given a chance, it will gorge itself — often becoming so big that it will be unable to move, especially if it eats too fast. As a general rule, though, the wind scorpion won’t eat prey that’s bigger than itself.

That said, though, it’s far from a timid creature. Despite claims that it will scream while it’s running toward its prey, it actually moves in relative silence. And it’s actually quite aggressive — especially if it feels cornered or otherwise threatened. Though it has no venom glands, the camel spider does have sharp pincers called chelicerae that will hurt if it makes contact with human skin.

And while the bite won’t require medical attention, it’s always a good idea to clean the bite with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to avoid infection, in the rare instance that it does bite you. But, as a general rule: if you leave it alone, it will leave you alone.

Urban Legends About the Camel Spider Are Greatly Exaggerated

It seems the origins of the “larger-than-life” camel spider first started getting legs in 2004, when a mass e-mail purporting to show gigantic solifugae threatening the lives of the American soldiers in Iraq began making the rounds. Long before Facebook became a hub of misinformation, spam e-mails featuring the photo above began circulating through gullible people’s inboxes.

“From someone stationed in Baghdad … It’ll give you a better idea of what our troops are dealing with,” read the e-mail that accompanied the photo above. But, according to the sergeant who took the photo, the actual size of the camel spider in the photo above was no more than 4 centimeters (about 1.6 inches), and the creature’s oversized appearance is due to forced perspective.

“Photos that purport to show creatures six times that size have misleading perspective—the spider is invariably placed in the foreground where the lens makes it appear much bigger than its actual size,” reports National Geographic.

The misinformation was so widespread, in fact, that when Rod Crawford, of the Burke Museum, attempted to clear up the camel spider’s bad name, he was met with abusive e-mails accusing him of disrespecting the troops.

“One person offered to have his brother in Iraq send me a 30-cm specimen, but backed down when the brother claimed he couldn’t get an export permit,” he wrote. “No one has ever explained how they measured speed or jumping height, and of course no one has ever produced a specimen found eating human or camel flesh.”

In reality, though, the camel spider is so afraid of humans that if you see one running toward you, it’s not because it wants to devour you alive. It’s because you offer something that they’re desperate for in the extreme heat of the Iraqi desert: a huge shadow.

SOURCE: allthatsinteresting.com