Travel to Eat
Adolescent and Adult King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa). Laguna del Lagarto Lodge, Costa Rica
The King Vulture is minimally sexually dimorphic, with no difference in plumage and little in size between males and females. The juvenile vulture has a dark bill and eyes, and a downy, gray neck that soon begins to turn the orange of an adult. Younger vultures are a slate gray overall, and, while they look similar to the adult by the third year, they do not completely molt into adult plumage until they are around five or six years of age. Jack Eitniear of the Center for the Study of Tropical Birds in San Antonio, Texas reviewed the plumage of birds in captivity of various ages and found that ventral feathers (belly and chest) were the first to begin turning white from two years of age onwards, followed by wing feathers, until the full adult plumage was achieved. The final immature stages being a scattered black feathers in the otherwise white lesser wing coverts. On the head, the skin is wrinkled and folded, and there is a highly noticeable irregular golden crest attached on the cere above its orange and black bill. This caruncle or wattle does not fully form until the bird’s fourth year.
Adolescent and Adult King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa). Laguna del Lagarto Lodge, Costa Rica
The King Vulture is minimally sexually dimorphic, with no difference in plumage and little in size between males and females. The juvenile vulture has a dark bill and eyes, and a downy, gray neck that soon begins to turn the orange of an adult. Younger vultures are a slate gray overall, and, while they look similar to the adult by the third year, they do not completely molt into adult plumage until they are around five or six years of age. Jack Eitniear of the Center for the Study of Tropical Birds in San Antonio, Texas reviewed the plumage of birds in captivity of various ages and found that ventral feathers (belly and chest) were the first to begin turning white from two years of age onwards, followed by wing feathers, until the full adult plumage was achieved. The final immature stages being a scattered black feathers in the otherwise white lesser wing coverts. On the head, the skin is wrinkled and folded, and there is a highly noticeable irregular golden crest attached on the cere above its orange and black bill. This caruncle or wattle does not fully form until the bird’s fourth year.